A Light From the Shadows
by octavia
Summary: A writer once close to Bilbo visits Frodo and finds not only an old friend, but a great shadow.
1. I

A Light from the Shadows

Author's Note: I normally wouldn't even think about writing something so Mary-Sue-ish, but this story was inspired by a dream. Dreams are sometimes the only semi-original thoughts I have, so I try to use them in any way I can. This particular dream was stewing into a story the very morning after its birth, and I've been mentally working on it ever since. And there are really few similarities between Dria and I, except that we both love to write and have birthdays in the fall.

This story follows the books better than the film(s), so if you haven't read any of the _Lord of the Rings_ series then I suggest you do so, especially before reading this.

This story is rated PG-13 because of violence, romance, and, ah, evil?

"A Light from the Shadows" is dedicated to Kelly and Elizabeth, whose endless _Lord of the Rings _discussions undoubtedly brought about the dream that inspired this story.

I don't own _Lord of the Rings_. Duh. You guys knew that. I own Dria, and that's about it.

I

3008, Third Age (1408 S.R.)

Taking a deep breath shaken with hesitation, Dria stepped outside into the gilded autumn and set her course down the dusty road. There was no more prolonging it. It had been seven years, and inquiring minds (her own included) had a right to know.

Infinitely green hills rolled by as Dria strode up the road toward a home she'd visited so many times, that of her mentor. As a writer, the old hobbit had taught her many things about curiosity, observation, and worldly things Dria really had no use for except for wonder's sake. 

But now he was gone. And no one knew why--or where, or how, for that matter. The presently missing Bilbo Baggins hadn't confided a shred of his plans in his favorite hobbit-maid before his eleventy-first birthday party. Even though Dria prided herself in her observations, she had been left in the dark as to why Bilbo had disappeared and where he had gone. She'd tried to dismiss all of her fretting and worries, but both a writer's curiosity and concern for her mentor chafed at her lofty mind whenever she sat at the base of a willow tree to work on her manuscript or passed Bag End.

Here it was early September, nearly Bilbo's one-hundred-and-eighteenth birthday and there was no word about Bilbo, not even from the infamous Gandalf the Grey. Despite his efforts to be inconspicuous, Dria had noticed the venerable old wizard visiting Bag End at intervals past the long-expected party, sparking her curiosity once more. This most recent visit had something final about it, something intriguing. The rest of Hobbiton had relapsed into dormant curiosity, but Dria was burning to know what had happened to her beloved old Bilbo.

Frodo knew. He had to know: he was Bilbo's nephew. Not to mention he'd obviously been trying to avoid his distant childhood friend ever since he saw that first expression of thoughtful concern on her face. Beloved Bilbo had possessed that same curiosity for all things, and so Frodo knew it was only a matter of time before Dria started asking questions. As a result he exiled himself within the safe and holy walls of Bag End and rarely answered the door.

Well, today he was going to have to answer both the door and a few questions--perhaps more than a few--because Dria was one of the closest hobbits to Bilbo and someone after his own heart; a writer. And so Dria stepped onward with extra confidence, armed with not her pen but her wit. Halfway there she realized she should have brought some sort of gift or token of appreciation for visiting Bag End. Instead of turning back, she shook her head and decided that this was not a matter of etiquette; it was a matter of information. So she continued, only to trip and tumble down the wagon-ruts, striking her dark head on a stone, her eyes failing in a moment of blackness that terrified her.

Frodo, meanwhile, had awaited the day when he'd have to tell the truth--or lie, he wasn't sure which yet--when the reclusive writer confronted him about the whereabouts of her mentor, his uncle. Ever since awakening that morning, he'd had a sick feeling. He'd felt that this would be the day all of the truth, all of the details, and all of his concerns would have to cascade into common knowledge. 

For although lying seemed a hundred times easier, the sick feeling was accompanied by the realization he couldn't lie to Dria. They'd been friends, however distant, practically since they were born. In recent years they'd grown apart, mainly due to Dria's habit of staying alone under that same willow tree to write and write and write until her family needed her, which was rare--she had five elder brothers and three elder sisters who took care of most of the work. They'd visited with one another during the Party, but that of course had really ended in ruin. No matter how he looked at the situation, Frodo simply couldn't lie to her. She had a right to know about Bilbo more than anyone else did. 

The sick feeling of apprehension remained long into the afternoon, so Frodo sat within his fortified Bag End and waited.

A silver image struck Dria's mind's eye like her head striking the stone or lightning striking a tall tree. Startled, she sat up abruptly and ignored the pain throbbing in her skull. Instead she focused on this mind-picture and struggled to see the details.

_A hobbit. A man--no, taller and nobler than a man. An Elf. The hobbit was a weary traveler--Bilbo!_

Dria's breathing stumbled and ran onward. Bilbo and an Elf. What could that mean? She didn't think of the fact that she'd never seen anything her mind's cavernous darkness any other time she'd fallen out of a tree or off a pony, or the fact that she was still sitting in the middle of the road. She'd seen Bilbo without really seeing him, almost as if out of memory. But there were no Elves in any of her memories.

"Writer's block, Dria?"

Dria looked up to meet the speaker's eyes and saw none other than Samwise Gamgee, Frodo's gardener. "No, I just...fell...trying to regain my bearings, I guess."

Giving her a hand up (Sam had always been such a gentleman,) the gardener inquired, "Where are you headed?"

Nodding her head in the direction, Dria replied, "Bag End, actually."

"Huh. I just came from there. I suspect you have some business with Mr. Frodo." Sam knew exactly what this business was without even having to see Dria; he knew his master all too well.

"I do, actually. How did you know?"

Sam simply smiled. "Why else would you be headed to Bag End?" He glanced at the sun's position in the sky and added, "Well, I'd best be off. G'day, Dria."

"Farewell, Samwise!" Dria replied in her mock-dramatic manner.

Sam wanted to add a "good luck" to his goodbye, but thought it might be rude. He continued down the road, hoping his master and the sweet yet resilient maid wouldn't clash too badly.

Vaulting over the gate like she always had, Dria followed the walk to the door and crisply knocked. Anyone who could see and feel what was beyond that door would have felt Bag End sigh to accompany the defeat exploding in its master's mind.

The door opened without a sound behind it and Frodo's curly head peeped out. "Good afternoon, Dria," he greeted her with a lame attempt to mask his disappointment. Although the last thing he wanted was for her to enter Bag End with the opportunity to ask questions, he opened the door wider and stepped aside so she could enter. "Tea?" he offered, figuring he might as well be polite if his secretive world was going to be skewered anyway.

"No, thank you, Frodo. I have other business here." Dria stood awkwardly underneath the chandelier in the front hallway and stared directly at Frodo, keeper of information. "It's about Bilbo."

Sighing, Frodo admitted he'd known it would be.

"I just want to know that he's safe."

"He is."

A maladroit pause unfurled between them. "And...and where he is."

He should have known better than to feel relief when she'd stopped at one request. "Bilbo...he....he's gone to finish his book. In Rivendell, in the House of Elrond."

For a moment this meant nothing to the home-grown Dria, but then the connection hit her with a similar feeling to that of a sword striking her with only light armor. Elrond was an Elf, one of the Three. Could he be--? He must have been the elf she'd seen her vision.

From Frodo's perspective, Dria's eyes merely lit up with realization and her brow wrinkled at some disturbing thought. "What is it?" he asked softly.

She couldn't tell him. He'd think she was crazy.

"Nothing. I...I've just been worrying so much lately." Feeling the onset of another silence, Dria continued, "Thank you, Frodo. You've eased many of my fears." She took a few steps toward the door but was halted by Frodo's voice, so much more warm and inviting than it had been.

"Dria...would you stay?"

Turning, Dria looked at Frodo in almost puzzlement. "We used to be so close when we were younger, and...I miss you. It could be like old times, almost."  
Beaming, Dria said, "I'd love to." Much of the formal awkwardness evaporated as Frodo smiled back and led her into the kitchen. "I've missed you, too, Frodo Baggins. I've missed you, too."


	2. II

II

3009, Third Age (1409, S.R.)

Bilbo's will had left Dria a fine quill pen, but she'd never dared use it. Such a precious thing was too valuable for use on her amateur, and admittedly failing manuscripts. Bilbo had been close to Dria because she was someone after his own heart; a writer. His advice had perfected Dria's words into telling beautiful stories. This lack of wise suggestions left Dria's work struggling, her sentences strained, her ideas few.

The next spring in the Shire was extremely wet in the beginning, so Dria was forced to write inside. (That is, she wrote when she had the time--she visited the Master of Bag End nearly every day, as most of his company was unpleasant, and worked diligently to help one of her sisters get married off early on in the year.) Eventually, and none to soon for Dria's taste, she set out to her willow tree with her papers and the new quill. Some spirit of Bilbo was left in it, and Dria hoped it would improve her writing.

As a habit, the hazel-eyed hobbit lost track of time whilst she was enraptured in the world of her own making. So when she heard a familiar voice call her name, she was less than surprised to see that the sun was already retreating toward the West, toward the Grey Havens.

"Dria! Still writing, I see."

Despite all of the wisecracks the citizens of Hobbiton often made about her writing too much, Dria couldn't help but smile. Frodo's teasing was endearing, and she noticed that he was poking fun at her in the same loving way he'd done with Bilbo. "Yes, Master Baggins, I am. With Bilbo' s quill," she replied, holding it up.

Hands in his pockets, Frodo frowned down at her thoughtfully. "You don't have to say 'Bilbo's quill,' you know," he told her, his former cheerfulness suddenly gone. "He gave it to you, just as he gave plenty of things away, only this gift was not given in jest."

Dria shrugged, thinking of the silver spoons inherited by Lobelia Sackville-Baggins and the mirror now all-too-often gazed into by Angelica. "Bilbo is still alive. It is still his pen. I hope the spirit he's left in it will guide me when he cannot."

Smiling almost wryly, Frodo sat on the new grass beside her and leaned against the great tree. "I'm glad someone else thinks he's alive. Everyone else is becoming doubtful."

"I know the truth. No one else does. You cannot blame them for thinking the worst."

"But I _can_ blame them for what they say about him being odd. I can blame them for saying _I'm_ odd." When Dria looked a little disbelieving, Frodo added, "Don't think I can't hear the whispers. They all think I'm a bit queer for no real reason."

Dria set her manuscript beside her on the ground, but kept the precious pen in her right hand. Looking into Frodo's eyes so he'd know she meant it, she said, "I don't think your queer at all. You're different, and that scares them."

Managing a small smile, Frodo admitted that either way, Bilbo's birthdays which Frodo had celebrated in the old hobbit's absence had not gone over so well with Hobbiton.

"You forget that it was your birthday too. And I enjoyed it immensely."

Frodo laughed. "You just enjoyed the food," he joked, putting his arm around Dria's neck in a playful headlock, but quickly withdrawing it. The lines and borders of their renewed friendship had not been drawn yet; he did not want to make Dria uncomfortable. What had been perfectly acceptable back before they were in their tweens, back before Dria began writing, could easily become awkward now.

Dria saw this hesitation and used her free hand to find his tangled in the grass. "I liked being with you, Frodo. I'm glad we're friends again." She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. "The food _was _very good, though."

Saying nothing, Frodo stared out at the sunset. "They all find me strange for acting like Bilbo is still alive when they think he is not. But I cannot deny something I know to be true. All I can do is avoid their misconceptions."

"Is that why you wander so often? How you found me here?"

Shaking his head, Frodo explained, "I can't help but wander. I have this lust to go out on the road and see where I end up. I miss Bilbo, Dria. I miss him more than I ever thought possible." He folded his arms across his propped-up knees and continued staring down the knoll fire painted in the sky. "I didn't find you by chance. Ever since we...grew distant I've known you spent all your time writing here. I needed a companion."

Silent, Dria contemplating this, but instead of staring at the sun's retreat into the West, she gazed into the wisdom of the pale green grass of the knoll. While Frodo looked to the sky for words, for wisdom, she turned to the earth of the Shire. Writing had taken her over, and Dria realized how she'd replaced people with characters, the Shire for a more adventurous setting, life for a plot. 

The sky was growing more purple by the moment and a light breeze played on the long fronds of the willow tree. Dria let out a deep breath, taking in the beauty of the world. Her world. One she lived in, not one she'd created. 

Frodo invaded her reverie by saying, "The Sun retreats into the West, as I have seen Elves do. They make for the Havens and sail away across the Sea, leaving Middle-Earth behind. I cannot help but worry that there is a reason for this, that they are the canary whose warning we miners should take heed in."

Dria had never seen Frodo so poetic and philosophical, and was so taken aback by the tranquility of his face amidst the anxiety in his words that she could say nothing. Eventually he sighed and pulled himself to his feet. "I should be getting back to Bag End, and you especially should get yourself home. I'll walk you, if you'd like." He offered a hand to help Dria up, but she was already nearly standing.

"I would like that a great deal, Frodo."

Frodo took to wandering again, sometimes alone and sometimes accompanied by Merry or Pippin. The more solitary he became, the more his neighbor hobbits thought he was "cracking," and Frodo tried to ignore their odd stares and muffled words.

Avoiding the rumors seemed to mean avoiding company, so Frodo took to taking more and more walks alone. This way he could sort his thoughts and satisfy his desire to simply wander at the same time, unburdened by life in the Shire.

On one such day when his drive to walk far and wide could not be calmed, Dria was frustrated with her manuscript. She was almost done with it, she was sure--but no matter how she tried to knead and pinch the plot, it seemed out of place. Finally she slammed down her pen and shuffled the papers into a loose pile. It was a beautiful day outside, but last night's rain had made it preferable to write indoors. But Frodo liked such slightly misty weather, and would be walking, if Dria was any judge of character.

So just as Frodo had come to her when in need of a companion two years before, Dria sought him out. She knew the paths he followed and it wasn't long before she saw him with one hand on his walking stick, the other in his pocket, ahead in the mist. She called out to him, and he turned; she bunched up her fawn-colored skirt in her hands and ran down the hard path to him.

"Greetings, Master Baggins. Wandering away from the cruelty of the world?"

Frodo did not laugh at their little inside joke, but only said, "Not out of it, but into it. The more I wander, the more they say I'm 'cracking.' Yet if I stop I feel like I really will go mad."

Shaking her head at the ground, Dria replied, "I don't understand why the Shire has to pick on you. You're a perfect gentlehobbit, and yet they can only find fault in you."

"They think I should be settling down. But I can't settle down, Dria, I can't stop moving. Here I am four and a half years after coming-of-age and I act like I'm still in my tweens."

Slowly, softly, Dria said, "I don't think I'm ready to grow up either. I'll be thirty-three soon."

Although he knew Dria hadn't meant it that way in the slightest, Frodo couldn't help but feeling the reference to Dria's coming-of-age was a little seductive. _I really am cracking_, he thought in frustration: frustration at the rumors, frustrated that his wandering could never be satiated, frustrated with all the circles of the world.

"Well," he said after a few minutes. "Don't you go disappearing on me on your birthday like Bilbo did."

It was a small jest, but Dria saw it as a huge improvement in Frodo's brooding mood. Her friend needed something as an escape from Hobbiton society more substantial than a day's walk. She just couldn't figure out what.


	3. III

III

3009, Third Age (1409, S.R.)

"So Dria Burrows is finally going to come of age, and, more importantly, her parents actually care."

"Impressive, isn't it? They thought they should celebrate their youngest child's passage into adulthood, but I can't shake the feeling that they're really just celebrating their own journey into ripe old age. It's really quite amazing that the party is on a scale this grand, since I'm not a very important character in Hobbiton." Dria shrugged, her legs dangling over a branch of the willow tree.

Frodo hated how Dria was so consumed by her writing that she let words like 'character' slip into everyday speech. It gave him a chill, a foreboding feeling about Dria's obsession with words. He shook it off and continued, "But you should still celebrate."

"I suppose so. I just wish it would just be friends instead of high society. Besides, my parents are probably going to try to set up a betrothal with an old hobbit from North Farthing. He's about twenty years older than I am." Dria cringed. "I thought being the odd duck would help prevent that sort of thing."

Dria's words seemed casual but her tone bitter. Being the youngest of nine children couldn't have been easy. Frodo watched her gaze out over the Shire with both a fascination and a detachment, both enraptured and distant. "Well, I'll do my best to keep you occupied," he finally offered.

"Sounds like a plan. I figure I should be gloriously indisposed if Merry and Pippin get drunk for entertainment, and give Sam enough ale for him to loosen up around Rosie Cotton."

Chuckling, Frodo said, "So you've noticed it, too."

"Who hasn't? He fancies her like Angelica fancies herself."

The reference to his vain cousin sent Frodo into another small fit of laughing. "That's a rather good way of putting it. I wish he'd just screw up his courage and at least talk to her."

"That's the problem. He's too afraid that he'll screw it up if he talks to her."

Nodding, Frodo switched back to the original conversation. "So why do you dread this so much? I mean, other than the possibility of a betrothal"

Staring at the grass below, Dria shrugged. "They'll probably notice how different I am. I'm not one of their kind. Soon they'll be saying I'm cracking, too. What a perfect pair of madmen _we'll_ make."

"Happy...bifday...Dwia...."

"I honestly had no idea they'd get this drunk. Who would think two hobbits could consume nearly an entire barrel of ale?"

Normally Frodo would have been a little disturbed about the drunken display before him, but fortunately for Dria he'd had a few beers himself and was beyond the point of caring. Dria had explained to Merry and Pippin that they couldn't start singing until Frodo was on his second mug, and they had amazingly lasted that long before bursting into very loud, off-key song. By this time innocent Rosie had long since departed, not wanting to witness anything her untainted eyes couldn't handle, but not before having a long conversation with Sam. Most of the other guests had pretty much ignored Dria anyway, preferring to socialize with more prosperous folk (or, as many chose to do, get drunk).

At this present time Pippin was leaning up against the wall and looking a little faint, and Merry was leaning on Dria. (He'd tried to find a solid piece of furniture to stabilize himself against, but had only made it as far as Dria's chair and had decided she would do just fine.)

"Never again," Sam declared, but immediately burst out laughing, as Pippin had passed out and slid to the floor with a thump. "Well, maybe just a few more times a year."

Dria watched for a moment, then stood and replied, "Well, I think that's a sign we should put up the ale." Merry whined a moment, then realized the chair wasn't so stable without Dria sitting in it and lost his balance. He crashed into Dria, who wobbled and caught him. Frodo helped her steer Merry into a sturdy chair while Sam propped Pippin into a sitting position against the wall.

It was nearly midnight, and Dria's supposed entrance into Hobbiton society had turned into a house of drunkards. Even though he had quite a headache, Frodo realized this and was rather disgusted. "This didn't turn out quite as planned, did it?" he asked Dria wryly.

"No, but this is far more entertaining than talking with strangers." Dria's eyes suddenly widened as she looked beyond Frodo into the hallway. "That's the hobbit they want me to marry," she whispered. Frodo glanced over his shoulder and saw a very wealthy-looking hobbit who also looked about as old as Bilbo. Acting quickly, he grabbed Dria's hand and pulled her outside. They helped each other stumble up the hill to the willow tree, which seemed the sturdiest thing in the world to lean against at the time. "What a night," Dria commented, gazing up at the stars. It was like passing from war into peace.

"Mmm. A good night for a walk."

"Only if it wasn't so cold. That's what I hate about my birthday; November is so chilly."

Without hesitation this time (who knows whether it was the ale or the comfort of their friendship that compelled him), Frodo draped an arm across Dria's shoulders and drew her close for warmth. "Well, I doubted you at first, but your thirty-third birthday has definitely been a night to remember."

"Not in the same way as yours, but I think that's a good thing," Dria said softly. Her head still throbbed, and she rested her head against Frodo's shoulder, shutting her eyes to savor the silence of the night. 

"If Bilbo had never disappeared, we might never have become close again," Frodo mused. "At least I know he's safe. I'm just glad I have someone to help fill the space Bilbo once occupied."

Dria was silent, nearly unconscious with the tranquility of the chill evening. Frodo watched the stars sparkle on an indigo blanket and the willow leaves reflect shadows on Dria's still face. He wondered if he should tell her about Gandalf, or the ring that had secretly been haunting his thoughts, something to seal this moment and make it holy. Gandalf's warning to keep the strange ring a secret rang through his wading mind and he remained quiet, allowing the sound of the wind coldly exhaling to rustle the leaves on the willow tree to wash over him.

Even Frodo could not keep Dria warm for long, and she began shivering. Opening her eyes, she confessed, "I should return soon. No one's supposed to stay much longer, and I'll have to help Mother survey the damage."

"Oh, I don't think anything's broken , except maybe Merry and Pippin's collective dignity."

Dria smiled. "Well, either way, the family will want me there." She began to pull away so she could head down the other side of the hill, but Frodo didn't loosen his arm and asked her to wait.

A little concerned, Dria looked up into Frodo's dark eyes, even darker in the night. What drinking would have clouded over was amazingly clear, like Frodo's mind was unaffected. With one arm still around Dria, Frodo laced the fingers on his other hand with hers. "You've kept me sane, Dria. You've kept me happy, and you've replaced heartache with something entirely different." He let go of her hand and traced her jaw with his forefinger, lifting her chin so he could look directly into her eyes. Dria looked nervous, but she also looked ready.

Frodo leaned in and kissed her lightly, really just a peck on the lips that lasted a little longer than it should have. He pulled away slowly, reluctantly, and dragged his arm from around her. "Happy birthday, Dria," he murmured shyly, shoving his hands in his pockets, and descended the hill to Bag End without looking back.


	4. IV

IV

3010, Third Age (1410, S.R.)

Dria found herself spending more and more time at Bag End, not only to be near Frodo but to inhabit the same writing space that Bilbo once had. The unusually long, dreary winter was no help in putting her in the mood to write, and she had enough pleasant distractions to prevent her from making much progress.

Tapping her pen against the scarred wooden desk, Dria contemplated how Bilbo would have made a landscape seem interesting. No matter how many colorful words she added, the description came off dry and flat. Spring, apparently, wasn't as much of a muse as she'd thought. She didn't have much time to think about it, as Frodo slid into the chair with her and wrapped hi s arms around her neck like a child. Dria graciously accepted the kiss on her cheek and wrapped her arms around him, pen still in hand.

Seeing the manuscript, Frodo, asked, "When do I get to read it?"

"When it's finished."

"When will it be finished?"  
Dria was beginning to see how the other hobbits could see Frodo as acting like he was still in his tweens. Personally, she thought it was deliciously boyish and was simply glad to see Frodo happy and seemingly unconcerned again. Taking a deep breath like an exasperated mother would, she answered, "Once you stop distracting me so I can get some work done."

Frodo's face became a little more serious as he explained, "Then you'll never finish it." Further explanation was in the form of a long kiss, which Dria saw as good an excuse for a brief hiatus as any.

"You seem worried about something," Dria pointed out as she and Frodo were walking, wandering as usual, in late spring.

Shrugging and not meeting her eyes, Frodo replied, "It's nothing."

Dria obviously knew that It was Something, but remained silent. She thought of Gandalf's visit two years before, which Frodo had said little about, and of Bag End, her home-away-from-home of sorts. Staring at the ground in daydream, she abruptly halted, jerking on Frodo's hand.

"What is it?" Frodo asked in an almost panicked tone.

Dria looked up, and her nearly golden eyes reflected not what her eyes were seeing, but what her mind was seeing. "It's Gandalf," she panted, her shoulders heaving even though they'd been walking on relatively flat land at a leisurely pace. "You're worried about him and the new cares he's been hindered with."

"H-how did you know?" Frodo stammered, taking both her hands in his as if to steady her. Truly her skin looked ghostly and Frodo feared she'd faint.

"I saw it. I saw it not with my eyes, but in my head. I saw you, and Gandalf, and how worried Gandalf is about...something." She paused to catch her breath before adding, "It's happened before. When I came to ask you where Bilbo was, I fell on the road and saw Bilbo with an Elf. Frodo, am I going crazy?"

Frodo shook his head rather courageously, to comfort himself and the shaking Dria. "The first time it happened I hit my head, and so I blamed it on that. I'm scared, Frodo. I'm scared." She hugged Frodo tightly, afraid that letting him go would release her sanity as well, and Frodo wondered not what was wrong with her, but what gift she possessed.

"I wish Gandalf was here," Frodo commented, across the table from Dria. "He'd know what was going on."

As if she hadn't heard him, Dria muttered, "I focused so hard on someplace where I wanted to be and I could see it. I'm just afraid to try it again."

"It's like your mind can see where your heart lies," Frodo surmised, reaching across the table the take her hand. "You're not crazy. I think you have a little magic in you."

Dria gazed into Frodo's ingenuous, open face, the face of a childhood friend grown up. "Well, I suppose that's a comfort," was all she said.

On the contrary, Dria wasn't comforted at all. Her visions haunted her, lingering in the back of her mind, presiding over her thoughts like a malevolent overseer. She avoided Frodo, thinking she was really avoiding having another vision. Though she tried to write, her words were as scattered as her thoughts and most of her time was spent staring at a half-written scene of battle. Her parents thought she was avoiding Master Baggins, and were relieved; they suspected nothing of the relationship between the two, but were one of the many sheep in the flock that collectively believed Frodo was a little mad.

Despite Frodo's wishes, Gandalf did not return, and another spring came and went with no word of the wizard. Frodo worried quietly, wishing for both the Grey's counsel and comfort for Dria. But no visitor came, and Frodo forced himself to consider the matter a trifle and move on.

Eventually Dria admitted to herself that her fiction was suffering, though she confessed to no one the reason behind it. She switched from writing her own epics to researching those which had already taken place, hoping to find a sparkle of inspiration. She sat with a few chronicles from some ancestor's collection in a comfortable crook in the willow tree in the heat of the summer. The chronicles of the three jewels, the _Silmarilli_, filled her mind. Before the Rings of Power and their master, the dark lord Sauron, there had been another to strike fear into the heart of the world: Morgoth. 

The name set a darkness over her heart and she shivered even in the sweltering heat. Morgoth was a perfect villain, even more so than Sauron, perhaps. Either way, she felt tense at receiving all this evil into her innocent mind.

The darkness in her heart suddenly blanketed her eyes, and barely lifted so Dria could see shadows over a landscape. She saw a pallid sun rising through a sky polluted with malevolence, and felt a burning fear clench her being.

A shadow in the East.

Normal vision, the peaceful green Shire in extreme contrast to what she'd seen in her mind, restored itself momentarily. Dria gripped the coarse branch on which she perched and gasped to catch her breath.


	5. V

V

3011, Third Age (1411, S.R.)

Dria simply could not write anymore. She returned to Frodo instead, spending all of her time at Bag End instead of shut up in her little loft writing. The summer heat continued, so they would sit in the cool wine cellar, the thick heat still lingering upon them like dead weight. Dria told Frodo of her third vision, clutching him like the frightened little girl she felt like inside.

"I cannot imagine your heart was in Mordor," Frodo commented, unsure of what to say. The name of the forsaken place drew another arrow of fear to let fly into her soul, and Dria shuddered. Holding onto her like she would be lost to him, Frodo added, "I hope it is not an omen of things to come."

Shutting the thought from her mind, Dria lay her head on Frodo's shoulder. For a moment Frodo felt a small fraction of her fear, only he feared something entirely different: losing Dria. If the fear of the darkness possessed her, who knew what would happen. A splinter of such fear of his own, jumping at this terrifying Shadow, had tensed his every muscle occasionally, and he felt it now. Feeling both the weight of Dria's head on his shoulder and the twilight on his heart, Frodo observed he'd felt the Shadow's presence more often now, ever since Bilbo had left. How odd. He supposed Bilbo had been like a security blanket before, shrouding him from the outside world.

Frodo tried to focus on the now instead of such unpleasant thoughts and stroked Dria's unruly hair until she fell asleep in the quiet wine cellar on a hot afternoon in the Shire, far away from the shadow she had seen growing in the East.

It seemed that as Dria's fear faded and she relaxed into routine again, Frodo became more and more haunted by something. No matter how many times she asked what was wrong or tried to gently coax it out of him, he never explained a word of his troubles to her. So now _he_ avoided _her_, and spent as much time alone as possible. His wanderings became more and more frequent; it seemed as though whenever Dria stopped by Bag End, no one was home. And even after waiting for several hours, Dria still found herself alone in the hobbit-hole.

To fill the time, Dria watched the leaves turn gold and the biting autumn breeze billow her willow-curtain. A pulsing drive throbbed in her right hand (Frodo had always jokingly called it her "write" hand) and she wrote like a controlled maniac, her manuscript close to its end. She'd been trying to cut down on her visits to the Middle-Earth of a millennia ago for the past season, but every so often a snippet of a dream would catch itself in a corner of her mind before consciousness blew it away and stick with her, begging to become a part of her story.

It was too cold to write outside some days in the later months (Dria could never abide wearing gloves while writing), so she would sit at the table at Bag End, glancing out the convenient window every so often whilst her action came to a climax and began to recede.

Night had stumbled quickly upon the Shire at one of these times. The peace of the day had left Dria relaxed and lazy, so instead of writing she'd looked over her manuscript a few times in Frodo's armchair, her feet propped up on an ottoman. The rhythm of her own thoughts lulled her into a light sleep, the lullaby interrupted only by a footfall on the floor.

Dria's eyes slowly opened and tried to focus. "Frodo? Are you just getting back?" she asked through the fog of a yawn.

"Yes. How long have you been here?"

"Since mid-afternoon, I suppose."

"It's well after nightfall now."

Dria raised her eyebrows, but the motion was muted by her sleepiness. "You were out a long time."

"I had some thinking to do." Frodo paused, looking a little guilty, before adding, "It's getting cold. Would you rather stay here for the night?"

Dria weighed her options not on her hands, it seemed, but on the drooping of her eyelids. "All right," she said. "I'll just sleep in this chair. It's quite comfy." She shuffled her papers into some form of a pile and set them in a messy tower on the floor, topped by her pen. Her cloak was an accidental tablecloth on the small table beside her, and she reached for it to serve as a blanket, but Frodo had already grabbed a blanket and was draping it over her. 

"Mmm. Thank you." Dria closed her eyes and Frodo kissed her forehead. 

"Good night, Dria," he murmured.

"Good night, Frodo. Love you," Dria whispered, but Frodo was already too far away to hear.

Winter was Dria's least favorite time of the year. She hated the cold and wading through the snow and not being able to watch the world from beneath her willow tree. Writing seemed to died with last year's leaves; Dria passed the days watching out her window and waiting for enough snow to melt for her to go to Bag End.

On the first day of Yule the Burrows' had a party for all their married children and friends. Dria listened to the merrymaking from her bedroom and wished for nothing but Frodo. Her parents were expecting her to think about settling her life somewhere already, she knew, and subtly expressed their disapproval for her friendship with "the Baggins." Sitting with her feet perched on her bed frame, her arms folded across her knees, and her chin upon her arms, Dria stared malevolently at her window, dark and opaque from the light glaring off the glass in the night.

Frodo would be pacing back and forth throughout Bag End, stir-crazy from being unable to wander the Shire. The fire would crackle and the pallid light soften his face...

"Dria! Do you plan on coming out of there?"

"I don't feel well," Dria replied as convincingly as possible. It was little less than the truth; being without Frodo made her feel sick. "Do you mind if I just stay in here?"

Her father let out a heavy sigh on the other side of the door. "Fine. Just try and get some rest."

Dria said "I will," but she was almost smirking with the lie. She wouldn't get any rest, although she'd blow out her candle and curl up in her bed in case anyone came to check on her (which they wouldn't.) She'd lie awake and think of Frodo, and how perturbed her parents would be if they knew how she and Frodo had much more than a friendship. The rebellious feeling she received with these thoughts seemed an added benefit to their relationship.


	6. VI

VI

3012, Third Age (1412, S.R.)

Another of Dria's sisters was to be married at Midsummer, and it seemed like half the Shire was invited--the guest list rivaled that Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday party. As was tradition, the bride's family planned the entire event, so Dria was naturally (though reluctantly) heavily involved. Skimming the guest list one day, she noted that one prominent hobbit had been left out.

Frodo.

"Mother? There's someone missing on the guest list," Dria called across the hobbit-hole.

"Who?"

"Frodo."

Her mother's head appeared in the doorway. "He's not invited."

"Why not? He's one of the richest hobbits and the Shire, not to mention my best friend. He'd probably even be happy to help finance this whole bloody shindig."

"Don't use that tone with me, Dria. You know as well as I do that the lad's crazy. You shouldn't even be associating with him." Thinking this was the end of the conversation, Mrs. Burrows continued her housework.

Standing up, Dria snapped, "No, Mother, I don't know. Frodo isn't crazy; he's just brilliant and kind and more of a gentlehobbit than any of these rich brogues you're marrying your daughters off to."

"Someday you'll be glad I married you to a rich brogue."

"No, I won't! I'd much rather have someone who loves me and treats me properly. I see enough mistreatment here, especially of Frodo. You'll never see a kinder hobbit, nor one more rejected. Just because he's different doesn't make him bad."

"I am your mother, and this is your sister's wedding, Dria. We decide who is coming, and Frodo Baggins will not be!"

Dria glared into her mother's eyes, brown instead of her own wild hazel. "Fine," she said evenly. "Then I won't be coming, either."

When Dria proudly told Frodo how she'd stood up to her mother, Frodo looked unexpectedly crestfallen. "Oh, Dria, you didn't need to do that for me," he replied softly, combing a hand through his tangled hair.

"Yes, I did. I'm sick of everyone treating you so terribly." She interwove her fingers with Frodo's. "You're the best friend I've ever had, and I'm not willing to forget that for the sake of society."

Frodo looked down into the eyes of the quietly pretty hobbit-maid he cared for so much, the writer Bilbo had adored. Even if no one else approved, Frodo knew they had Bilbo's blessing.

As if reading his thoughts, Dria added a little shyly, "I love you, Frodo."

Wordlessly, Frodo smiled with his eyes and his heart, which swelled with bliss as his lips met hers. Dria loosened one hand and skimmed it through his unruly hair. As Frodo wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her closer he knew that everything, all the rumors, all the rejection, was worth it.

True to her word, Dria did not attend her sister's wedding, nor the wedding of a brother later in the summer. Instead she nestled in the refreshing shade below her willow tree, overlooking Bag End instead of her own hobbit-hole, and wrote. She could feel the frayed ends of her plot coming together in a tapestry telling of bygone days. The story was moving from its middle sector toward the climax, and then to the end. So she wrote onward, even when her hand ached and was smudged with black ink.

Soon.

Soon she would be finished, several years of work polished off into a story of kings and Elves, stout-hearted hobbits and frightful creatures. It was her masterpiece, her labor of love, her everything.

Frodo barely saw Dria after she'd had the revelation her story was coming to a close. She'd told him she was working on a surprise, given him a quick kiss, and left. He was still a little bewildered by her vigor despite the miniature feud obviously brewing in her family, but he blamed it on Dria's unpredictability. Funny he should be attracted to someone as fickle as himself--weren't opposites supposed to attract?

Meanwhile, Dria was crossing out sentences and burning whole pages to make her story work. Eventually satisfied with the past, she worked toward the future. Her candle flickered low late into the steaming night when an exhilarated feeling of approaching closure blanketed her.

_She looked around her, the now-familiar sight not invoking fear, but a sense of adventure._

Darkness was falling over the Barrow-Downs.

Dria's chest heaved with weighted breath. "Bilbo," she whispered as if in prayer, "It's finished.

When Frodo opened the circular door to Bag End to let in the sunshine, he almost stepped on a small package. Puzzled, he picked it up to see that it was not a package, but a stack of rather dilapidated pages, tied together with twine not unlike that which Dria used to tie back her thick hair.

_Beyond the Hedge, by Dria Burrows_.

Frodo smiled, almost in disbelief. Dria had finally finished her manuscript. He had to admit he'd doubted the end would ever come, as she'd been writing it for the better part of ten years. But now it was finished, and he would be the first to read it.

Clutching the manuscript like something precious, Frodo went back inside.

The beginning faltered a little due to Dria's youth at the time, but her writing quickly became stronger. The plot changed and thickened like boiling molasses, becoming more and more rebellious with each page. When the heroine, a plucky little hobbit named Belladonna, abandoned her family and home in Eastfarthing to explore beyond the Old Forest, Frodo felt a sense that the text was prophetic. 

That eerie ominous feeling returned multiple times throughout the story, as Belladonna barely survived several encounters with Barrow-wights and was saved a few times by an unseen stranger described vaguely. Frodo knew Dria well enough to realize that she had been unable to find much on this person she'd discovered in some ancient text, so naturally she'd made mysteriousness part of her plot.

By the time Frodo finished all 654 pages, with brief intervals for meals, the sun was speedily heading toward the West. Frodo leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. He wondered what Dria would be doing--her time alone had always been spent writing. Now that this great work was finished, what would she do with herself?

He wanted to go see Dria, to hold her and tell her how beautifully her life's work had turned out. Yet he couldn't seem to rise out of the chair nor fully awake from the dreamlike trance reading had put him in. So he gazed dreamily at the ceiling with the loose papers in his lap, alone with his thoughts of Dria, and her heroine Belladonna, and all the questing Dria's words described.

Frodo did not return Dria's precious papers the next day, nor the next. He reread the story three times, reveling in the adventure of the tale. Late one night he crawled out of bed to read a certain chapter over again by the window, whitewashed moonlight giving the story an entirely different feel than spangles of sunshine.

A flicker or green moved across the screen, and Frodo's head snapped up. Colored lights--emeralds and rubies--undulated across the sky like a rippling curtain. His heart jumping into his throat, he stood up and quickly shuffled the papers back together on his desk. Pulling on some warmer clothes, he floated out the door and down the road.

To Frodo's dismay, the house was lit up and alive. Then he remembered: Dria's sister was expecting a child, and the joyous grandparents-to-be were throwing a party for her. There was little chance of catching Dria alone.

One window was dimmer than the others, lit by a single candle rather than lanterns. It was Dria's window, the same one she'd had since she was a child. Beaming, Frodo picked up a small stone and skipped it across the window-pane. 

Holed up inside her little room like a mouse waiting to be slain, Dria jumped at the noise. She slowly walked to the window and peered out. The silhouettes of evil never stopped lingering in her mind, and her heart crashed like rhythmic thunder.

Seeing the familiar figure standing in the garden quenched her fears, but her heart didn't stopped thudding. "What?" she hissed as she opened the window.

Frodo grinned mischievously. "I've got something to show you."

"It's nearly midnight!"

"So you won't be missed." Holding out a hand, Frodo silently beckoned her to slip out her window. Dria glanced back at her locked door, then back out at the eager face before her. 

"You're mad," Dria commented as she hitched up her skirts and tumbled into the garden. "So what's so important?"

Frodo simply grabbed her hand and half-dragged Dria to the top of the willow tree's hill--secretly they'd both been referring to it as _their _hill. From there, Dria had no questions about what Frodo had wanted her to see: the lights still flickered and threatened the stars, a natural magic rarely seen in the Shire.

"The aurora," Dria whispered. "It's so beautiful." She sank down onto the dewy grass and drew her knees up under her chin. Frodo was still, making no move to sit beside her, but Dria didn't mind. It was a shared moment, but also one of solitary wonder.

The emerald colors heightened and brightened to a pale, calming green, and then were overcome but a bright, sparkling crimson. This change was so sudden that it set Dria off-kilter for a moment.

Rubies became red-hot flame, a dagger of a pupil slitting through it. An all-seeing flaming red eye probed through the aurora, glaring straight into her very soul. All else faded to black around her, and Dria found herself trapped in a darkness that not even this fiery eye could illuminate.

A voice accompanied the eye and spoke, spoke in words she couldn't understand but was terrified by anyway. Dria feared not just for herself, but for everything else in every circle of the world. Something bad was coming, something horrible, something absolutely dreadful. This voice, this eye, a _palantir_ in the sky, was all behind it.

Dria let out a scream that nearly tore her apart, but no one else heard it. No one save perhaps that eye, which most likely had all-hearing dark ears to know her every weakness as well.

"Dria? Are you all right?"

Frodo was oblivious to what Dria had just seen, but had heard her breathing quicken to a rapid, erratic pace.

Snapping out of her nightmarish trance, Dria looked up at Frodo with wide eyes. "I-I had another vision," she stuttered, barely speaking really words. Fragments of gibberish appeared between words, and she blubbered on madly for a few extra moments after the release of these fatal words.

Frodo stooped beside her. "What did you see?"

Shaking her head, Dria gave Frodo the message that she could not tell him. Frodo knew that this had been the most clear vision. The most terrifying vision.

Helping her to her feet, Frodo supported her down the hill to Bag End.

An hour later, both hobbits were huddled together in Frodo's bed, Dria still shivering with the after-effects of what she'd seen. She had regained her speech, but had nothing she wanted to say. A piercing cold gripped her insides no matter how many blankets she wrapped up in or how tightly Frodo held her. 

The cup of tea Frodo had brewed for her had helped a little; though Dria didn't know it, he'd added a tonic of comfrey to calm her into a tranquil sleep. Despite her fear, Dria felt her eyelids droop and let her cares pass away. There was only sleep, a glorious sleep to come, and she allowed it to embrace her.

Morning sunshine warmed Dria and melted the icicle in her core. For once she woke up with a calm smile on her face, feeling cozy blankets and Frodo next to her beneath them. Rolling over, she saw that Frodo was already awake, propped up on one elbow, watching her.

"Good morning, fellow recluse," Frodo greeted her nonchalantly.

It was an odd greeting, but Dria simply yawned, closed her eyes, and nestled closer to him. "G'morning." She wasn't awake enough yet to remember why she was at Bag End, and Frodo hoped she'd never remember.

"I just wanted to tell you...your story, it was beautiful. You're very talented, Dria." Frodo actually felt shy, like he was falling in love with her all over again.

Dria opened her eyes again and her smile doubled in size. "Thank you."

Kissing her forehead, Frodo settled back into the pillows and returned to a half-dazed sleep, both he and Dria basking in their warmth.

Loud rapping on the Bag End door.

Frodo awoke before Dria, startled enough so he was halfway to the door before he realized what was going on. Company? This early? Even though he and Dria had slept in, it was barely half past eight.

Making a lousy attempt to smooth out his rumpled hair, Frodo opened the door.

Two very irritated-looking Burrowses.

"Good morning," Frodo managed to greet them without looking too distraught.

"Where is Dria?" Mr. Burrows demanded, no hint of expression on his face.

Frodo stammered a few inaudible syllables, but was saved by, "Right here, Father."

Dria's parents looked much less than approving as Dria approached the door, wrapped in several blankets, still cold from the vision remaining at the back of her mind. 

"Why did you sneak out your window last night?" Mrs. Burrows interrogated. She wanted to reach out and grab her daughter, then drag her back home, but she almost had a feeling that touching the hobbit-maid's skin would burn her hand.

"That was my fault," Frodo admitted. "There was an aurora last night, and I wanted Dria to see it."

"And then what?" Mr. Burrows prodded, expecting something much worse than what had really happened...or, perhaps, something harmless compared to the horror of Dria's vision.

"I...fell. On the hill. In the dark. I hit my head, and I was dizzy. Frodo helped me back here and I stayed the night so he could make sure I didn't hurt myself too seriously."

Frodo was impressed by the innocent look on Dria's face as she blatantly lied to her unforgiving parents.

"Are you all right now?"

"Can you walk home?"

There was no concern in either of her parents' voices as they inquired about their daughter's well-being. Dria nodded and unwrapped herself from the blankets. Her dress felt like it was made out of ice. As she handed Frodo the bundle of wool, her hands trembling, a few of her fingers hooked his and borrowed a small bit of warmth.

Seeing the cold, hard looks on her parents' faces, Dria was overcome by a hatred and a desire to rebel. "Thank you for taking care of me," she murmured to Frodo, briefly kissing his cheek before following her aghast parents home like the obedient daughter she was supposed to be.

"You may not consort with that hobbit anymore!"

"Why not? He isn't good enough for you? He takes better care of me than anyone else, including the both of you!"

"Do not use that tone with me, Dria!"

"I'm an adult now, Father! I can speak to you in any way I want! And I can be friends with anyone I want!"

Dria's mother crossed her arms. "You're unmarried. It's not proper to stay overnight at the house of a single male, especially that crazy Frodo Baggins." She spoke as if she were scolding a small child, not arguing with her grown daughter.

Shaking her head, Dria smiled wryly. "You can't control me. What is proper cannot control me. Frodo is my best friend. And I love him."

This last sentence hit her parents like the remembrance of her vision had hit Dria earlier that morning--with horror, with disbelief, with anger. Without thinking, behaving as if Dria had sworn at a relative or thrown a tantrum, Mrs. Burrows stepped forward and slapped her daughter's face.

"Never. Say. That. He is the worst type of hobbit. He's mad, and madness is the seed of evil. Consort with him and you'll be dancing with demons, Dria."

Her mother's words stabbed Dria's heart and all its love for Frodo mercilessly. For Frodo to be evil, or even crazy, was for worlds to be shaken. Dria realized that her parents would never condole her loving Frodo, and she would never have any peace even if she rebelled. This thought sickened her, and for a moment she thought her anger made her see flames. But then she realized she was seeing it again, oh the red eye, watching her every movement and waiting for the best time to strike.

Words spewed from her mouth like flames from a dragon's; words she couldn't comprehend but somehow dared speak. She wanted to curse her parents, to make them pay, to make them realize with regret what they were doing to their youngest child.

When Dria's vision cleared, the room seemed darker. Her mouth burned and her voice was hoarse. Her parents stared at her with fear and wonder.

Panting, Dria tried to remember what she said, but the words would not come. No words could come.

Regaining her voice, Dria's father growled, "Get out of my house." When Dria was speechless and puzzled, he added, "You have wronged us and now cursed us with some black tongue. Get your things, and leave. You are no longer one of us."

Dria never could remember finding her way to her room, bundling her few possessions together and returning to the kitchen. Her parents still glared as she stared at them with the lost, sad look of an oppressed child.

"Get out. And never come back."

Slowly turning and leaving her family's house, Dria Burrows became simply Dria, a lost writer in a wide world seemingly turned against her.


	7. VII

VII

3012, Third Age (1412, S.R.)

Despite all the fighting she'd done in Frodo's name, Dria felt too guilty to go to Bag End. This guilt kept her from seeing Gandalf visit briefly that autumn, which in turn affected her knowledge of her visions and the outside world. She found herself meeting with the Gaffer Gamgee, Sam's father, and inquiring about a place to stay. Not just a gardener, the Gaffer knew where there were abandoned hobbit-holes or such homes for sale. And, again barely being able to recollect the event later, Dria was selling most of her possessions and a year's labor to a farmer who somehow had a small, spare hobbit-hole to sell.

Dropping the remnants of her bundle, Dria sank down to the dusty floorboards and leaned against a wall. She stared at the dim ceiling. She wondered if her parents were right. She wondered what would become of her.

Burying her face in arms folded across her knees, Dria sobbed until she was empty, emptier than she had ever been.

The next time Frodo saw Dria, she was vigorously planting rose bushes in front of the hobbit-hole she'd apparently bought from Sam's father. He didn't stop to ponder why she was planting them this late in the summer. Hands in his pockets, he watched her bent form carefully placing a bush in he ground for a moment before murmuring, "What happened?"

Dria jumped, but her heart drove back the fear when she saw it was Frodo. "You scared me," she sighed, cleaning off her hands on her apron. "I...I don't know Frodo. I had a fight with my parents, and I said something...something from my vision. They disowned me." She wanted to say something else, anything else, but instead turned a little and gestured at the rose bushes. "Mother always hated roses." She did not mention that she thought the thorns would keep anything dark and dead from nearing her home.

Frodo saw the lost look on Dria's face and reached out to draw her into his arms. Dria suddenly felt a shred of warmth and clung to it. "I don't know what's happened to me, Frodo," she whispered. "Something terrible is coming, I can feel it. I just wish I knew what I said. It could be a curse or some sort of malediction that could bring terror upon us all."

Just as Bilbo had loved to write, he loved books as well. His collection of the written word was extensive, so that was the first place Dria turned to look for any information on her vision and her fiery words.

Eight hours into her search through old papers and maps and books and scrolls, Dria found herself in the middle of several piles of discarded information. A heavy sigh accompanied her hand weakly reaching out for a tattered scroll loosely bound.

Something about the forging of the Rings. The thought of it made her feel sick, but Dria kept reading anyway, driven by her desire to understand herself. 

As she skimmed toward the bottom, raspy words echoed in her head as she read them on the page, both in the Common Speech and letters she shouldn't have been able to understand.

_One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them_.

The familiar cold feeling spread over Dria and she gasped as if startled by freezing water. She had no idea why these words would have come out of her mouth during a fight with her parents, but there was obviously something great and terrible at work here.

With another freezing wave Dria realized who had seen her, and who had spoken to her.

The Eye of Sauron was watching them all.

The sun seemed dimmer as summer turned to gilded fall, and fall into shimmering winter, and winter to bright spring. Dria took material from Bag End to her own, which she'd nicknamed Rosegate, almost every day, and spent her time reading them. The only change in this routine was when Dria realized she was hungry or that there was work to be done in her small vegetable plot. She happened to be in the library when Gandalf slipped into the Shire by night, but one look at the wizened old wizard's careworn face and she knew not to mention a word of her visions to him.

Bilbo had collected little information on the dark lord Sauron, preferring much more lighthearted works, but nevertheless Dria pushed herself through every book, every scroll, every loose paper she could find in Bilbo's crowded library.

Frodo knew the meaning of Dria's words by now, having seen that one paper written in a black language pinned above her tiny secondhand desk. He had immediately thought of the ring hidden safe in Bag End, but dismissed it almost as quickly. His largest concern was Dria spending all of her time immersing her mind in shadows, but Dria did not share this concern.

Looking at Frodo with a kind defiance, Dria spoke prophetically. "This darkness is not arbitrary. I am seeing it expand in Mordor. Nothing good can come of this."

These words chilled Frodo and he nodded, awkwardly turning to leave. He made his way to Bag End drunkenly, in a disturbed stupor, and pulled particular maps from their known places in his desk. Memorizing one once again, he pulled on a cloak and took to wandering the black lines in his mind that represented paths and lanes in the real world.

Bag End was empty when Dria stopped by to borrow more from the library a few weeks later. Frodo was probably out walking, like he always was when the weather was this nice. Passing through the kitchen, she paused by the table. Maps, some new, others dilapidated, covered every inch of the tabletop's surface. Dria reached out to touch one, a map that gave a detailed route to Rivendell.

A malevolent voice suggested things to Dria, but she stifled the little mind-voice and made herself walk onward to the library. Even as she left with a bundle of books, the little voice quietly but persistently whispered to her. 

_He's going to leave you_.

It was not long before Dria ran out of things to read. She felt no more enlightened now than she had before she'd started scouring the library. This yearning, burning for knowledge scorched her insides, but there was nowhere else to go. She took a few trips to Michel Delving to explore the museum there, but none of the exhibits featured what she wanted: a wealth of information pertaining to the One Ring.

Frodo's maps provided refuge for a little while. Now both of them went for long walks for the sake of wandering and discovering what existed in a map's negative space.

"Dria," Frodo murmured on one such walk in early autumn, as they rested in a grove of pine trees, "You seem anxious...anxious to do something."

His suspicions gave Dria the feeling like she had some great secret that had been discovered and immediately felt guilty, but she tried to remain calm. She nuzzled Frodo's shoulder and replied, "It's my visions. I want to know why I have them. They scare me."

Dria looked and sounded like a frightened child. Wrapping his arm around her small form, he kissed the top of her head and tried to hold her safe from all the terrors from within her mind.

Despite her own fears, Dria could tell the Frodo was haunted, too, but she didn't know what plagued his mind like her visions did her own. She lifted her head off his shoulder and gazed into his thoughtful eyes. "You take such good care of me, Frodo," she said sincerely, remembering how little her parents had done for her. "I wish I could do something for you."

Watching Dria say this, Frodo was overcome by the realization that he loved her. She wasn't just his best friend, a hobbit he cared for. She was his lover.

"You don't have to do a thing," Frodo whispered. "I'm content just loving you."

Dria never told Frodo that she had a vision then, a vision of him standing on a great precipice high above a fiery abyss. And although she continued to lean against him and run her hands through his hair, when she returned to Rosegate that evening she slumped on her bed and cried.

It was the last walk of the year. Soon the weather would turn much colder and the snow would fill their well-traversed paths. So as a last hurrah of sorts, Dria and Frodo had asked Sam to come as well. Dria noticed how Sam did everything he could for Frodo, and Sam noticed how Frodo tried to take care of Dria, who was looking pallid and sickly these days.

"Almost...there..." Frodo panted as they climbed a long, steep path to the top of a hill which, according to him, had a spectacular view of the Shire.

"If you say so," Dria commented wryly. She was beginning to think this hill would go on forever when the small party pushed through a stand of thick trees and beheld the entire Shire in miniature, kelly green fields gilded with autumn sun.

Sam was speechless; Frodo smirked slyly at the wonder of his skeptical friends; Dria gazed away to the South, her head cocked in thought. "What is beyond South Farthing? There is the whole world out there, and I've never been farther than Pincup."

"Well," Frodo began evenly, resting his elbow on Dria's shoulder, "eventually you cross the Brandywine, and Greyflood, and enter Isengard. The head of Gandalf's order lives there. Eventually you'd reach Gondor, the land of Men, and the white city of Minas Tirith."

The name of the city had a ring to it: Dria remembered reading about it somewhere. It was a splendid, gorgeous city, and its libraries were unmatched by any others in Middle-Earth.

Libraries.

Even as Frodo kept talking, Dria only thought of the huge amount of information, undoubtedly what she needed, in those libraries. She knew, and she resolved: she _would_ go to Minas Tirith, and learn about the Ring.


	8. VIII

VIII

3014, Third Age (1414, S.R.)

"You can't just go to Minas Tirith, Dria. Do you realize how long of a journey that is?"

"Of course I do. I'll borrow a pony from someone."

"But it's dangerous. The least you should do is take me with you--and I'm sure Merry and Pippin would be happy to accompany us."

Dria sighed. "You don't understand, Frodo. This is something I have to do alone."

"Why?"

She had to tell him.

She couldn't tell him.

There was no other way.

"Because what I have seen haunts me. I have seen the dark lord Sauron, and I have seen great shadows, great evil. Those words I yelled at my parents? _One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them_. I have to go to Minas Tirith, and I have to go alone. I must research this evil, and maybe I can stop it. I've waited all winter, and now the time has come for me to go out into the world and see what I can do for it."

Frodo looked quietly angry, annoyed that Dria would put herself in such peril. "You're only one person, Dria, and a hobbit at that. One hobbit can't save the world."

"Maybe not," Dria said quietly. "But maybe two can." She engaged her fingers with his and looked into his eyes with a knowledgeable innocence Frodo hadn't known she possessed.

"I'll do what I can," Frodo whispered, kissing her forehead softly, almost believing that she really could go save Middle-Earth while he stayed safe in the Shire. "Go fast, and may you return before I yearn for you too much."

Dria borrowed an adorable yet sturdy palomino pony named Princess from a stable owner she knew and packed saddlebags with only the essentials: food, blankets, and writing materials. She set off on April the sixth, hoping to reach Minas Tirith before June. It was all estimations for both her and Frodo, since neither of them had been anywhere near the White City, but the sense of adventure overpowered the worries of miscalculation.

Trotting along the hilly landscape was so peaceful that Dria realized she was a good league farther than she had ever been from home nearly a day after the fact. She'd been gone three days, and Hobbiton seemed a world away.

Instead of reminiscing about Frodo and her little home at Rosegate, Dria immersed herself in the landscape. New dewy grass slipped underneath Princess's little hooves, and the hills burst with trees blooming new leaves. Often enough she saw other hobbits along the North-South Road, although none seemed to be ready for such a journey as hers.

Nearly a week after leaving, Dria was camped a mile or two from a river and checking her carefully copied maps by a small fire. This river would be the Shirebourn, and relatively easy to cross, but the Brandywine would prove a challenge. Dria didn't even want to think about the Greyflood.

Nevertheless, Dria, found a shallow place to cross the river, and proceeded without mishap. It was the Brandywine, however, which would give her some problems. A heavy storm, which soaked everything except her carefully wrapped papers, raised the river's level dangerously, and it was three days before Dria felt save about crossing.

The frigid crossing chilled Dria and gave her a terrible cough, which delayed her a few more days while she camped and rested. Eventually she returned to the road, allowing Princess to carry her along the road instead of leading her from the ground, as Dria preferred to do.

The chill gave Dria a terrible fever and she barely remembered the trip from the Brandywine to the Greyflood. All of her motions were automatic, her pace was slow, and she had little concept of time. She remembered seeing a ruined town that filled both her and Princess with apprehension; and after that her cobwebbed mind began to clear, as if preparing her for something she might have otherwise dismissed.

When Dria first caught sight of Tharbad, the crossing of Greyflood, she was filled with relief and nudged Princess to canter. A cool breeze from the southeast blew her hair and hoods back, but it did not refresh Dria at all. There was an odd smell on the air, a metallic scent Dria couldn't quite place.

As Princess's first hoof struck upon the crossing, Dria somehow realized what it was.

The smell of death.

The cool breeze was like the hot breath of a dragon and Dria felt like she was spiraling into an abyss of darkness, of pure evil. She felt drawn further south, but not into Mordor; she would have recognized the dullness of the light and the slight glow of Mount Doom. She saw a tall tower, amazingly smooth, surrounded by wise gardens and beauty. Yet there was a shadow about the place, a shadow the sun could not penetrate. 

Hideous creatures slid in and out of such shadows, and Dria gasped as she realized what they were. _Orcs_. But what was this tower she was drawing so near? 

Another image of a white-haired, white-bearded old man gazing into a reflective orb gave Dria the information she needed. _Saruman_. She'd heard the name before, and knew him to be a powerful wizard; and his tower was Orthanc. The name, let alone the actual tower, sent more chills down her spine.

Darkness was brewing in Isengard, a land she'd planned to cross through.

She had to get back to Hobbiton.

The images faded and she was in the middle of Tharbad. Dria inadvertently yanked on one rein to turn Princess around, and the pony whinnied sharply. Disjointed and deaf to the pony's disgruntled noises, Dria kicked her mount until they were galloping back toward the Shire, back toward Hobbiton, back toward Frodo.

Dria's fever returned and her journey back to Hobbiton was incredibly slow. She knew Frodo would worry, but couldn't bring herself to ride any faster, any harder. Vaguely she realized that she could have been to Minas Tirith and back by now, but her entire body ached and fluctuated between flashes of searing heat and chills. Princess carried her loyally, treading as softly as possible.

Familiar green hills swam into Dria's hazy view and she managed a small smile. Clutching Princess's fine mane, she slipped farther into unconsciousness and hoped her smart, steady mount would lead her home.

Sure enough, the pony trudged down the arid road and halted at the Bag End gate. Dria jerked awake a little and slid off slowly, afraid to jar her bones. Weakly sliding the gate open, she shuffled up the walk, knocked, and sunk to the front step so she wouldn't have so far to fall when she collapsed.

Dria remained lovingly tucked in bed for four months. No matter how many remedies Frodo tried or how many midwives offered their advice, Dria could not recover. The unnatural fever took ages to break and left Dria weak. Her former vitality had been sapped and she had become frail, Frodo's glass heart.

Eventually Dria made a little progress and began speaking while awake, but most of the time she slept; sometimes peacefully, sometimes fitfully. All the while Frodo watched her with a deep concern he stoically attempted to hide. Sam stopped to check on them both to see Frodo seated at the bedside, his elbows on the mattress, watching sleeping Dria intently. He noticed Sam come in, but didn't acknowledge it even as Sam walked in and stood by his chair.

"You love her, don't you?"

Frodo was silent, staring off into space and considering the question. He thought of all the wonderful times he had Dria had spent together, how they took care of each other, how he could hold her for ages. Closing his eyes to savor the faraway memories, he whispered, "Yes. Yes, I do."

Sam put his hand on Frodo's shoulder in comfort. "I hope she gets better, Mr. Frodo," he said quietly, knowing how lost one of the couple would be without the other.

"I do, too, Sam. I do, too."

Yule had come and gone before Dria could get out of bed without help. To hide her weakness she preferred to stay in bed and gaze out the window or talk about benign little things with Frodo or Sam. She avoided the topic of Minas Tirith entirely, sticking with talking about the weather or how she was feeling.

She'd just awoken and was stirring into consciousness when Frodo kissed her forehead and brushed a lock of disheveled hair away from her face. "Good morning," Dria greeted him softly, blinking a few times.

"Good afternoon, actually." Frodo smirked and smoothed the bedspread where he sat.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sleep in."

Taking her hands (they were ice cold) into his own, Frodo assured her, "That's fine. You need your rest to get better." Dria nodded and was silent. Hesitantly, he took a deep breath and asked what his heart had been burning to know for nearly six months. "What happened, Dria? The fever was so sudden, but so terrible. It drove you home."

Dria wouldn't meet his eyes. Her small fingers tightened their grip on his like freezing wire. "It started out as chills, but then I...I was crossing the Greyflood," she whispered, her voice suddenly hoarse. Flashes of her vision returned and she couldn't see Frodo anymore. Terrified, she gripped his hands to cling to the physical world. "I could see into Isengard through my mind...there were orcs there. I saw a great wizard--Saruman. I saw him gazing into a globe, and then I saw a flaming eye. I could smell death, Frodo. I looked into the shadows and I think they will always remain with me."

Frodo appeared in her vision again, however smoky, and tears rushed to Dria's eyes in her relief that she could see him, in her fear, in her joy to be home again. Frodo drew her to him and she cried in his arms, clinging to the only thing that made her feel like she was worth something.

As she clutched Frodo, Dria felt like she was holding the last scraps of her sanity. _I really am going mad_, she realized. The thought clawed out her insides and she sobbed harder.

Dria was solitary, removed. Frodo noticed, Sam noticed, and anyone who ever noticed the reclusive hobbit-maid observed the fact.

It was nearly midnight in early spring, chilly and dangerous for frail Dria to be outside. Nevertheless, she stood at the apex of her willow tree's knoll, looking to the south. Drawing her cloak tighter about her, she watched tiny lights and listened to high musical voices, all moving away to the West.

Frodo climbed the hill silently, but Dria heard him. "They're Elves," she replied without turning around. "They leave for the Grey Havens, to leave Middle-Earth and head across the great Sea. They flee coming trouble."

Running a nervous hand through his thick curls, Frodo wrapped one arm around Dria and murmured, "Well, it has nothing to do with us. Elves are willing to leave this world. They have eternity to explore. We have to do the best with our short little lives. They're no point in worrying."

Despite Frodo's warmth, Dria was rigid and continued to stare. "It has something to do with Mordor. Sauron." Dria's mouth burned as she spoke the names. "Shadows are coming." And with that she headed down the hill toward Rosegate.


	9. IX

IX

3015, Third Age (1415, S.R.)

"What are you doing?" Frodo asked he walked into Rosegate that summer. Dria's uneven, rickety table was covered with sticks, feathers, flint, and string.

Dria held up a slim arrow. "Archery."

Frodo wrinkled his brow in concern. "Why? Do you plan to go hunting?"

Shaking her head, Dria continued cutting slits to insert the feathers. "It may come in handy later." She set down her knife and smiled, the first smile Frodo had seen in months. "Come," she said, taking his hand. "I have something to show you." She led him to her front garden, blooming to the brim with white and peach and yellow and pink roses. Pulling a careful scrap of fabric knotted into a loop from her pocket., she found a round pebble on the walk and backed away toward the door. 

Stepping aside, Frodo watched as Dria set the pebble into the loop of fabric and twirled it rapidly, flying white in stark contrast to her otherwise still body. With a deft flick of her wrist, Dria flung the pebble and it hit the latch on the gate.

The gate was twenty feet from where Dria stood.

Aghast and amazed, Frodo gaped at Dria, who beamed innocently and placed the sling back in her pocket. "Th-that was amazing," he stammered. "How...where did you learn that?"

Dria straightened his collar and wrapped her arms around his neck. "You don't remember? I always used to do it when we were little."

Kissing her forehead, Frodo couldn't help but smile. "You're amazing." He was glad to see her happy again, in touch with the real world instead of her omnipresent visions. "But why learn to do it again? And why the archery?"

The smile drifted from Dria's lips as she told him, "There is nothing so precious as being prepared."

Dria's obsession with "being prepared" disturbed Frodo, as did her often prophetic words and talk of shadows. Frodo madly dug through Bilbo's maps, wishing for the courage to go adventuring--to leave the Shire, Bag End, his friends, his problems...

To leave Dria.

Inadvertently, Dria was holding him back. Frodo loved her too much and she was too weak still to be left alone in her tiny solitary hole at Rosegate. He supposed he could ask Sam to take care of her, but the gardener had other things to tend to here. Merry and Pippin weren't entirely aware of his relationship with Dria, and he preferred no one else no about it. There was only one choice: to stay with the hobbit-maid he loved.

A year had passed since Dria's fever, and she spent as much time as possible at Bag End. Frodo could see her quiet fear. It had been a tumultuous year, though one without any new visions, and Dria was constantly tense, ready to defend herself, Frodo, the Shire and the world from any shadows from Mordor.

Now she stood at the window, her hand in her pocket. Frodo knew she clutched her well-made sling and her other hand yearned to search for a smooth stone. He also knew she'd rather have her bow, for the weapon was stronger and her aim much more deadly. 

"Dria," he murmured, and she jumped, startled. Trying to ignore her tenuous behavior, Frodo continued, "We need to talk." He eased her into a chair and resisted the urge to hold her and try to get her to relax for once. 

"What is it?" Dria asked nonchalantly, but her eyes betrayed the ease of her words.

"You..." Frodo sighed. "I have to find the right way to say this. I'm worried about you. Your fever has left you frail, Dria, and yet you refuse to take things easy. You're still trying to save Middle-Earth, and in no position to do so."

"Frodo, if you had seen what I have seen, then you would do the same."

"No, I wouldn't. You're an ill hobbit who needs to rest. You don't know if there really is trouble in Mordor. You're wearing yourself out over nothing."

"If it was nothing, then why are the Elves leaving?" Dria asked coolly. 

"I don't know, Dria, I don't know. All I'm saying is you shouldn't do this to yourself over mere visions. You're wearing yourself too thin."

Standing up, Dria snapped, "They are not mere visions. I have seen what is coming, and I have to do what I can to fight it. If Gandalf was here, he would do the same."

"Don't bring Gandalf into this." Frodo stood and started pacing. "You are no wizard, and you are no match for anything evil that could ever threaten us. Why can't you just live your life like a normal hobbit, Dria? Why can't you just enjoy the Shire and leave important matters to wizards and elves?"

Dria's fear had smoldered into rage. "Because I am no ordinary hobbit, Frodo. I never have been, and I never will be. I can't enjoy the Shire because there's the rest of the world I have not seen, and the rest of that world could be threatening my home. I'm not normal, and neither are you. You just haven't realized that."

With that she stormed out of Bag End and slammed the door, the noise reverberating throughout Frodo's heart like a hammer nailing shut a coffin.


	10. X

X

Yule, 1415-1416 S.R.

Thinking of being locked in her room four years before, Dria spent another Yule alone. This time she still thought of Frodo, but her separation from him was her own choice. Shadows haunted her thoughts more than ever in her solitude, but she held fast to her resolution to stay away from Frodo after he'd dismissed her visions as nothing of importance.

Surprisingly, Dria found herself wishing she'd have another vision. She spent the long, barren winter staring off into space, waiting for a glimpse into the future or elsewhere. She wanted a vision to come true so she would know, so Frodo would know, that what she saw in her mind's eye had merit. Yet at the same time she was afraid of her visions coming true; they all depicted dark times for Middle-Earth, and she never, ever wanted to see those days, no matter what they'd prove.

Winters ago she would have attempted to write and been able to do so; her muse seemed to migrate to warmer places during the cold Shire winter. But now, with her manuscript long since finished and lying dormant on a shelf, Dria was at loose ends. Another story was an impossible feat; Dria could think of nothing more than a growing evil in Mordor.

Four months after she had last seen Frodo, Dria awoke in the night but did not see her bedroom. She saw a dark tower, and felt as though she was flying into it. She saw a pitiful, pallid creature with spindly fingers clawing at the air as he was tortured by orcs. His cries wrenched Dria's heart, but she felt as though her heart had been cloven apart when she heard two deadly words uttered in the dark tower or Barad-Dûr.

"Shire! Baggins!"

Dria had never fainted before save during her fever, but her terror was so great that her entire body went slack and she crumpled onto her bed, temporarily saving her from the thoughts of the names of her home and her love being uttered in the heart of Mordor.

It took all of Dria's mental power to drive back her fear in the coming months, but she could not dispel the thoughts of her visions. To pass the time she picked up Bilbo's pen again, but did not write an epic. She recorded, with every detail, her visions, in chronological order, accompanied by their date--she remembered the precise day of each. As she penned an account of the most recent vision, fear clawed through her shoulders at her soul, but she kept it at bay with the weapon of Bilbo's quill.

Eventually, but not soon enough, it was time to uncover her well-fortified roses from their winter wrappings and nurture them. This time-filler was a blessing, and Dria spent every waking moment in her rose garden, only leaving it every so often to half-heartedly work on her vegetable plot. The roses mostly bloomed white this year, and the other colors seemed paler. It seemed as though her roses were trying to calm her with their tranquil white. Though a nice effort, it was in vain.

Meanwhile, Frodo had spent his winter wandering about Bag End instead of outside. His thoughts often strayed to Dria and her visions, but mostly to the evil they prophesied. He worried constantly, poring over Bilbo's library as Dria had done a few years before. Finally he understood Dria's need to journey to Minas Tirith--Bilbo had been much more concerned with maps and histories of the Shire than with tales of Sauron.

Attributing his restlessness to missing Dria, Frodo realized he had to make amends. Something tried to make him avoid it, but it could not overpower his yearning to see her face again. So in early summer he set off for Rosegate, though every step seemed forbidding.

He saw her form, slimmer than usual, clipping roses in her bountiful garden. He stopped at the gate and said only her name. Dria looked up abruptly and her eyes widened, though not with fear. She stood and approached the other side of the gate, a single white rose in her hand.

Whatever had been advising him to stay away from Dria was screaming now, but Frodo ignored it. "Some darkness haunts us both and yearns to tear us apart." I don't know what will come of this, but I want you to know that I'll do my best to fight whatever the shadow is." He resisted the urge to reach for her hand, and instead decided to give her time to think over his words. After a pause he turned and walked away, as always never looking back. Dria clenched her fists together to push back the tears.

The thorns of the tranquil rose in her hand clawed into flesh, but she didn't feel it. She stood staring at the road even as blood leaked out over the stem and stained the white petals.

Though Frodo was forgiven, Dria had no wish to go to Bag End. Leaving her safe little home guarded by roses seemed impossible. She wasn't filled with fear anymore, but she was constantly anxious and jumpy. Relief finally came in early autumn, while she arranged a vase of many of the last roses of summer. The colors of the flowers swirled and she saw a waterfall, elves, elegance, and peace. She also saw a greatly aged hobbit and gasped when she realized it was Bilbo, working on his book in peace even in his advanced years.

The vision faded and Dria knew she had seen Rivendell again. The tiny sight had still left her relaxed. It had washed over her like rain and then a warming sunshine. Letting go of the rose she still lightly held, she brushed her hair from her face with her fair fingers and left Rosegate in a departure reminiscent of a similar departure eight years before, when she'd demanded that Frodo tell her of Bilbo's whereabouts. This time Dria's stomach was in a knot, but she stilled desired to see Frodo more than anything.

Three sharp knocks on the door and Frodo answered. His face wasn't disappointed, but hopeful.

"Frodo," Dria said, "I'm sorry."

Smiling, Frodo drew her inside and hugged her, malevolent bygones forgotten in this embrace. "I missed you, Dria."

Remembering the last time she had said these words, Dria replied, "I missed you, too, Frodo Baggins. I missed you, too."

It took Dria over another year to tell Frodo about her last vision, so yet another Yule came and went with them being fellow hermits. They were huddled together in an overstuffed chair watching a growling fire, Frodo sitting with Dria's head on his chest and her legs dangling over one arm of the chair, not doing anything in particular, when Frodo had mentioned "Shire" and "Baggins" in the same sentence. Memory of that terrifying picture in her mind tensed her muscles and her breathing quickened.

"Frodo," Dria whispered, "There's something I have to tell you." She sat up to think better and a detailed account of the vision poured from her mouth. "I do not know what this creature is, nor what he knew, but your name and that of the Shire was uttered in Mordor. I am afraid, and you should be, too." She clasped her hands together, slouching with her elbows on her knees, and looked up at Frodo with wide, innocent eyes.

A connection to all Dria's visions crossed Frodo's mind, but he was silent. He couldn't tell her--he was supposed to keep it secret, keep it safe, and he planned to keep it that way. Eventually he said, "I wish Gandalf was here. He would know exactly what to do and what this all means. Anything we speculate could end up being far from the truth."

Although Dria was curious as to what he was speculating, she did not pry. The brooding look on Frodo's face as he stared off into space, thinking, kept her mouth shut despite her habit of always asking questions. So she stayed slouched in the chair with Frodo, deadly quiet, and was left to her own thoughts. None of them were very comforting.

Dria sat in the willow tree, a sentinel on its hill, a place where she had not perched for ages. She watched the lush green hills inhabited ants of hobbits milling about, interrupted by a dust-trail of road or a billowing leaf from the tree. Leaning back against the small, rough grain of the bark, she let the sunshine penetrate her cold armor and provide a little light for a darkened soul.

No visions for a year and a half. No more forbidding thoughts of shadows. Just the Shire and sunshine. 

Someone was ascending the hill, but Dria already knew who it was. The only one who would ever come up here was Frodo--the hill had long since been designated as the territory of "mad" hobbits, and so all others stayed away.

Frodo did not call out a greeting, and Dria realized he couldn't see her up here. Grinning mischievously, she snapped off a frond of the willow tree and, taking one end in each hand, looped it around Frodo a few feet below.

Although he had been jumpy lately, the day was too beautiful, the sky too cloudless, for anyone to set a trap for him...except, of course, for Dria. Glancing up and seeing her, Frodo scaled the trunk of the tree and pressed close to her on the broad bough. Holding her face in his hands, he softly kissed her and she wrapped her arms around him, tracing patterns on his back with her fingers. 

Hidden in their tree, cradled like children, they remained until sundown, simply enjoying one another's innocent sweet romances. All the while, they both had a strange feeling that it was all too good to be true. 


	11. XI

XI

3017, Third Age (1417 S.R.)

"You know how long it has been since I last saw Gandalf?" Frodo remarked to Dria one wretched afternoon while they were corralled inside by a heavy rain. He was bent over maps he'd stared at a hundred times, and Dria was attempting to cook something (what it was, neither of them were quite sure). Moving to him, Dria ran her hands over his back and drove away tension with deft fingers.

"Ages. It's been eight years. I'm starting to worry."

"Wizards have many important things to do, Frodo," Dria assured him. "He can't come check on you all the time. I'm sure he's fine. I _know_ he's fine."

Frodo sighed and straightened restlessly. "I just can't shake this feeling that something is wrong, " he muttered, shaking his head. He glanced at the maps again and was filled with an urge to overturn the table covered with the diagrams of routes he'd never take, evidence of the journeys he's never make. Though his whole right arm tensed, he quelled the feeling and took a deep breath. "I feel stifled here, Dria. I love the Shire, but it's suffocating me."

This was not something Dria could comfort with a kiss or caress or a few kind words. Though she opened her mouth to speak, there was nothing to say. She wasn't sure this was something she could comfort at all.

Dria's nightmares were haunted by visions once again. She saw the same thing over and over, but it still terrified her. She saw Saruman gazing into a _palantir_, and an old man, a king perhaps, haunted by another. And then she saw the Shire, but instead of a sky there was a flaming eye watching them all.

In the middle of the frigid winter, Dria's body colder still, she sat up in her bed and hugged herself, rocking back and forth. Her knuckles were white as she gripped her shoulders and cried silently. _I really am losing my mind_. _The darkness will overcome me, and then it will encompass the Shire._

There is no hope. We are all doomed.


	12. XII

XII

3018, Third Age (1418, S.R.)

As twilight faded into night, a tap at the study window startled Frodo. His head snapped up to see a great grey figure stooping outside. Smiling with relief, Frodo went to the door and let Gandalf the Grey into Bag End for the first time in nine years. They stayed up long into the night, Frodo seeking information of the world. And Gandalf mentioned the ring Bilbo had left to Frodo sixteen years before, but then interrupted himself by saying, "Such matters are best left until daylight."

The next morning brought a late breakfast, and Frodo brought up the topic of the ring again. And so began the story many now know, but was a shock to Frodo then. He told Frodo of the Great Rings, forged by elven-smiths long ago, and the effects of such a ring on a mortal. After examining the ring Bilbo had left him, Gandalf flung it in the fire and looked for markings on the pure band.

Fine lines of fire scripted strange Elven-like words on the ring and Frodo's breathing quickened nervously. His brow creasing into a thousand small worry lines, Gandalf read the words in the Common Speech:

_One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them._

And so, just as the legends tell it, Frodo was told what he must do to destroy this ring, the One Ring. 

Dria's return to Bag End a few days later felt strange. She'd noticed Gandalf come and go, and decided to allow old friends have the time to themselves. Bag End felt cold, heavy, and she swore she caught a hint of a metallic, evil smell on the air.

"Frodo?" Dria inquired, not seeing him anywhere. He appeared behind her, startling her so she dropped the bouquet of roses she held. "You scared me...what's wrong?" Frodo looked pale, sleepless, and Dria immediately reached out to steady him.

"Dria," he replied, there's something you need to know about." He led her not into the library, but into Bilbo's former bedroom. From there he rummaged through a trunk and produced a sheaf of old papers. "Bilbo never told anyone in the Shire but me," he said softly, "but I think you should know, too."

Glancing at the papers in her hands, Dria said, confused, "But everyone knows of Bilbo's quest with the dragon."

"Not the full story." Frodo's voice was hoarse, and the lantern light sputtered across his troubled face.

Dria moved the first few papers to the back of the stack, looking for something she'd never heard in Bilbo's benevolent voice before. Another page nearly moved to the back, but Dria stopped when she saw a small sketch in the corner of the page.

"Riddles in the dark," she whispered. A creature called Gollum and his precious ring--something unknown to her before this moment. Taking a closer look at this pallid creature, she gasped and saw the riddles being exchanged in color, as if it were happening in front of her instead of in pen-and-ink on the parchment.

Hands trembling, Dria's entire body went slack and the papers slipped from her hands. It felt like the room was growing darker and smaller, closing in to crush her. "Gollum was that creature in Mordor. Sauron has him because this ring is _his _ ring. Bilbo found the One Ring in that cave, eighty years ago." Her own horror was not reflected in Frodo's still but disturbed face. He was calm, having come to terms with his proximity with great darkness.

"Frodo," Dria continued shakily, "tell me Bilbo has this ring with him."

Instead of speaking, Frodo reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver chain. Hanging from it was a gold band that glowed in the bizarre light.

Dria knew the legends: this was the Ring of Power, forged by Sauron, cut from the hand of the Dark Lord by Isildur, discovered by Gollum, found by Bilbo, and now passed on to Frodo. She also knew the one fate of this one ring: it must be taken into the core of Mordor and cast into Mount Doom to be unmade. There was no other way.

Where there was once fear there was not determination; what once trembled was dangerously still. Dria looked dark and powerful in the dim, and her voice was steady when she asked, "When must you depart on this quest?"


	13. XIII

XIII

3018, Third Age (1418 S.R.)

Frodo had asked Gandalf for one last summer in the Shire. Although he had spent his whole life wishing he could go off questing somewhere, he felt bound to his beloved homeland and was reluctant to even think about leaving.

Dria was not excited, but her face was set with a grim determination. She had every intention of accompanying Frodo to the end, and Frodo was relieved he wouldn't have to leave her behind. He made preparations to leave Bag End to the Sackville-Bagginses and moving to Crickhollow, near Merry, not worrying about complications upon his return. Though he did not mention it to Dria, Frodo didn't expect to return.

Sam and Pippin would come with them, and Merry would make it five. The preparations were made, and Frodo set himself to enjoy what he figured would be his last summer in the Shire.

The willow tree was too public--everyone knew that the two "mad" hobbits spent much time there. So Dria and Frodo opted for a place more secluded: a clearing in the forest where Frodo had often liked to read until Bilbo had left.

Reclining on the grass one glorious day in June, Frodo closed his eyes and absorbed the sunshine. Dria, leaning against a tree, watched him. He almost looked tranquil, but she knew better. He was troubled, and though he could hide it from others, she could tell. Moving to him, she propped herself up on one elbow and whispered, "How could I love anyone but you?"

Opening his eyes, Frodo smiled, but said nothing. As if she'd never seen him before, Dria scrutinized him and trailed a finger over the contours of his face. Her hand found the chain around his neck and pulled it out of his shirt. The ring glared menacingly in the sun. "You should keep it hidden," Dria said. "Anyone else could see it."

"What does it matter?" Frodo replied almost coldly. "We'll be leaving soon enough anyway."

"I'm leaving on Our Birthday," Frodo told Dria one night at Bag End. "I will be fifty, and Bilbo will be one hundred and twenty-eight. We set our course for Rivendell."

Dria stared off into nothing. "And I will be forty-two soon after that." She shook her head. "We're still young, Frodo, but barely." Coming a hand through her hair, she continued staring until Bag End became darkness. She saw nine horsemen dressed in black, galloping from the Dark Tower. The image snapped in and out of her mind like clockwork, and she breathed in sharply at its end.

"Frodo, what have we gotten ourselves into?"

Dria stayed at Bag End that night, curled up next to Frodo yet still cold. Mere thoughts of their journey ahead left them mentally exhausted at each day's end and proximity to each other was their one collective comfort. Despite being next to a restlessly sleeping Frodo, Dria felt very alone. All of her visions plagued her mind, overtaking and invading one another until she saw almost a chronology of both history and things yet to come. Awaking in a cold sweat, Dria shivered and stared into the horrifying dark until her dizzy head drifted into slumber.

The next morning Dria did not awake. 

Frodo kissed her cheek to rouse her, but she barely stirred. Her face burned to the touch. His breath quickening, Frodo jumped out of bed and ran for someone, anyone who could help her. Dria's fever had returned, and Frodo's one fear was that she would have to stay behind in the Shire while he forged ahead into the world.

Medical advice had come and gone; now Frodo watched Dria sit up in bed and coughed weakly. It seemed like every blanket in Bag End was wrapped around her, for her fever gave her great chills despite how hot she really was. "Frodo," Dria whispered hoarsely, "I saw everything. The past, the future--your whole journey, in pieces. I know not the outcome, but I am dreadfully afraid."

Dria's hands were in the blankets somewhere with her, so Frodo sat on the bed and wrapped an arm around her. "I am afraid, too, Dria. But once you get better, we'll embark on this together. At least we'll have each other."

Shaking her head and shivering, Dria told him, "No. We won't. The dark enemy has made me sick to keep me bedridden until after you leave. I was not meant to go with you." 

Though she tried her best to recover, Dria could barely get out of bed on her own. Her fingers gripped the bedroom windowsill with bone-like fingers, weakly watching night fall. "It is the first of September, Frodo. I have less than a month left with you before you leave," she said with a voice dry enough to crack.

Sighing, Frodo smoothed his hands over her shoulders. "I wish there's something I could do to help you get better."

She worried him. Dria didn't want to drag on his mind like that, be another weight on his already heavy mind. Turning around, she whispered, "There is one thing." Her eyes shimmered as she lured Frodo into a deep kiss, for comfort if nothing else.

Drawn to her sultry gaze, Frodo's hands traveled to her hips and pulled her closer. Dria leaned against the wall, hoping Frodo wouldn't realize it was because her legs were beginning to ache from standing so long. The world was spinning round and Dria felt her knees growing weaker. Leaning fully into the wall and clinging to Frodo, she closed her eyes and tried to let Frodo ease her illness.

Stopping for a moment, Frodo stared at Dria with a hard gaze. A lock of hair dangled over his face and he looked every bit the rogue he'd always aspired to be. Dria stared back at him, not seductively or coyly, but with the same look she gave everything. Frodo was unsure about something, and Dria's eyes gave him nothing but truth. He kissed her forehead and for a moment Dria despaired that she'd have to make her frail way to a chair herself, but then he abruptly caught her lip between his and lingered there softly. Dria leaned into the kiss and Frodo's fingers gently played upon her lower back. 

Dria's little reverie snapped as one of Frodo's hands went for the stays of her blouse. Pulling away sharply, she looked up at him with a perplexed expression. She shook her head. "Frodo, we can't do this."

"Do what?"

"We're both just trying to distract each other from more pressing matters. I love you, Frodo, but this is ridiculous."

Frodo ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "You're right. I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Don't be." Dria tried to move, but her knees buckled and Frodo caught her arm. Dria shook her head and set her face determinedly, slowly shuffling over to bed and sinking down onto the mattress. Frodo sat beside her nervously. "I've had enough excitement for one day, apparently," Dria remarked. Laughing, Frodo helped her into bed so she could rest, the once invincible face of a childhood friend altered to utter frailty.

"I should have done more strenuous walking," Frodo murmured, stroking Dria's cheek. "My reflection seems to be getting wider." Dria chuckled and poked him gently, telling him he'd be needing the extra meat on his bones.

"Rivendell." Dria shook her head. "And maybe even farther. I'll miss you something terrible, Frodo."

Kissing her forehead, Frodo whispered, "I'll miss you, too. But just think of how relieved we will be when I come back and all of this is over." He sighed. "Tomorrow the Sackville-Bagginses will be over to claim Bag End. You can be here if you want, but there will be a lot of bustling about."

"I'd rather stay away from the public eye, my dear," Dria replied nonchalantly, feeling like an old woman. "I'll stay hidden away in Rosegate, and say goodbye to you tonight." She gazed up at the fair profile of her lover and added, "I love you, Frodo Baggins. And I always will."

Smiling, Frodo told her not to be so dramatic. "I might just be going to Rivendell and back. Then we can have our privacy at Crickhollow. Bag End is no longer our haven. We shall have to make a new nest."

Despite how eager Frodo looked when he said this, Dria had a sick feeling that this new nest would never be finished, or perhaps never even begun. The clock struck midnight. "One day until the Sackville-Bagginses officially own Bag End," Frodo announced glumly. 

Dria nestled closer to him. "I should be getting back home. I just wish this could last forever."

"What?"

"This moment. It's the end of an era, our times at Bag End. I don't want it to change."

"Perhaps this new era will be better. This whole ring business will be taken care of, and we can live in a safe, peaceful world with no one save perhaps Merry to bother us." Frodo seemed to be underestimating "this ring business", in Dria's opinion, but she didn't want to make him nervous by saying anything.

Taking a deep breath, Dria decided to truncate the moment, the era; it would be easier now than later. She stood and gave Frodo a smiling kiss, and whispered "I'll be waiting when you return," into his ear. "Say hello to Bilbo for me. I'd ask you to take the manuscript if it wouldn't be such a burden."

Walking her to the door, Frodo added, "And I'd probably lose or soil it."

"Probably. Wouldn't trust you with anything of mine."

"Except your heart."

Dria looked at him with a kind adulation in her eyes for a moment. "Well, I know you'll take good care of that. Happy birthday tomorrow, love. May you have fair weather and not too much danger on your journey." Halfway to the gate Dria turned to watch Frodo shut the door, beautiful simply by being in his home, the master of Bag End. And that was the last Dria saw of Frodo Baggins for over a year. 


	14. XIV

XIV

3018, Third Age (1418, S.R.)

A sick feeling grew in Dria's stomach for the next few days. She was apprehensive about Frodo's journey, and furiously crafted arrows all day. Her hands trembled when she tried to keep them still and she found herself exhausted after each day, but she wished she could have gone and was restless at night. Safe sunshine mocked her; Peace criticized her weakness.

Four or five nights after the departure, Dria's dreams brought her a little serenity. She saw the four hobbits resting in a safe haven, the house of an odd man named Tom Bombadil and his wife, Goldberry. This Bombadil fellow was beautifully comfortable with his eccentricity, and Dria couldn't help feeling that her Frodo was in the care of an ancient father.

Awaking hazily from a deep sleep, Dria opened her eyes slowly, basking in the slant of sunlight through the window-pane. It was the same sun awaking Frodo in the house of Tom Bombadil. The difference between Frodo's sleep and Dria's was that while Dria's dreams had been pleasant, Frodo's had been haunted by fog and forest, rock and Black Riders. Yet Dria was too far away to sense Frodo's unease, and drowsily sailed back to consciousness, fantasizing about Frodo being next to her, sleeping safe and sound.

The next visions were not nearly so pleasant. Dria saw Frodo's capture by a Barrow-wight and despaired in the dark, gasping for breath and grasping her bow. She wanted to go find him, warn him, do something to aid him. Yet Dria was weak and far from her other heart, and she knew not whether her visions were of the past, present, or future. And so she fretted alone, making arrows and tending her roses with a mind more tense than her stretch bow-string.

Frodo's safe passage into Bree eased Dria's spirits, but something else soon disturbed her. As Black Riders attacked the Prancing Pony and stabbed Frodo at Weathertop, as Glorfindel rescued Frodo and carried him to Rivendell, the last roses of summer bloomed different shades than normal. Instead of pink and white, yellow and cream, they were all red. Blood red. Dria saw Frodo sleeping peacefully in Rivendell and awaking, then speaking to Gandalf, but her worries could not be quelled.

Trouble was coming. War was coming. Blood was coming.

No more visions came immediately, but Dria had that same sick feeling in her stomach. As she sat underneath her sacred tree and watched the sun hastily retreat into the west, she knew. Frodo's journey would not end in Rivendell. It would go into Mordor, for good or bad, life or death.

Two silent tears welled up in Dria's eyes and she squeezed them shut. Frodo had little chance of ever coming back, and all Dria could do was pray for his safe return.

Walking back to Rosegate, Dria wondered how long it would take to reach Mordor. She didn't want to think of Frodo entering such a forsaken place, but her writer's mind was curious. All of the calculations in her head, however, stopped abruptly as she hopped her gate and a certain rose, freshly bloomed, caught her eye.

It was black.

Dria reached out to touch its petals slowly. It did not seem delicate, but forged of iron. Her fingers brushed it and it was like touching molten metal. As her hand snapped back, she saw thousands of orcs, larger and stronger than the ordinary variety, being created in the tower she knew to be Orthanc. 

Not hesitant about thorns, Dria seized the rose and snapped it off the stem, tearing it apart petal by petal. She took these cursed petals inside with her and cast them into the fire, praying that these were not omens of things to come.


	15. XV

XV

3019, Third Age (1419, S.R.)

It was storming on Caradhras. Icy wool blankets fell upon the sullen Fellowship. Despite the cold biting and scratching him savagely, Frodo could only think of Dria and how much she'd hated snow and winter in general. He thought of her stories and her brilliant mind, her eyes and her laugh and her hair and her hands...

Stay in this horrid snow, or pass into the great shadow of Moria? The fellowship was silent as Frodo pondered the decision. He had to get out of this dreary cold and face the darkness--if not for himself and the others, then at least for Dria. "We will go into the mines," he announced, and the words frightened him as much as anyone else.

Lonelier than she had ever been, Dria began visiting Princess, the noble pony who had carried her nearly to Isengard. Talking with the pony in her cozy little barn behind her owner's Bagshot Row hobbit-hole helped Dria pass the winter and feel alive. Princess listened as Dria spoke of her visions, her worries, and, most of all, her love for Frodo. 

"He's gone to Mordor. Alone, I would almost think, but Sam would never abandon him. I did not see it; I felt it. I don't need to see what Frodo was doing to know how he fares. A shadow grows in his mind, but he forges ahead." Dria shook her head at the shavings lining the stall floor. "I wish I was with him."

Princess whuffed and butted Dria's shoulder with her nose, almost in reassurance. Dria thought the pony was trying to comfort her until she realized she stood between a pony and her food. Moving out of the way and stroking Princess's thick, soft winter coat, she felt a little better nonetheless.

Frodo trudged along in silence, and Sam had noticed his melancholy progressing over the past week. "Is the ring bothering you, Mr. Frodo?" he asked quietly, walking alongside his master.

"No. Well, yes, but that's not the only thing on my mind."

Sam didn't need to ask to know what else plagued Frodo's mind. "I'm sure Dria is fine. She's probably worrying about you, too. She's always been able to take care of herself."

"But what if her fever comes back and I'm not there? No one else will tend to her. I should never have come." Frodo shook his head. "The Shire is my home, and I was stupid to dream of adventuring someplace else. I should have stayed with Dria at Bag End, and let the end of the world come to us."

Dria's view of the War of the Ring was warped; she only saw Frodo, and no one else. What of the Fellowship, of Merry and of Pippin? The absence of these two especially worried her, and she couldn't help wondering how well Frodo would fare with only poor Sam to protect him. She tried to control her fretting, but when a pebble from her sling missed the target completely and nearly broke a window, then she realized how troubled she really was.

That night, however, she realized how necessary her worries were. In dreams--nightmares--she saw a great spider attack Frodo and Sam. She saw the spider wrap Frodo up in webbing like a fly; Sam's valiant efforts to kill the beast; Sam crying by Frodo's side. And then she saw Orcs carry away Frodo's limp form, and awoke crying. 

She stumbled to her desk to record the vision with a shaking hand whilst it wrote with Bilbo's pen. Her normally flowing script wobbled and collapsed, but Dria wrote on madly. Her fingers gripped the pen in a futile effort to hold it steady. Yet the vision slid vividly back into her mind with a sharp pain, and the pen snapped in her hand. 

Dria gaped at the broken pen.

For the first time, she had a gut feeling that Frodo was truly lost to her.


	16. XVI

XVI

3019, Third Age (1419 S.R.)

In reality, Dria did not have much time to worry, but in her mind it was eternity. A day of sheer worry and nervous sobbing was only relented when her tears hazed into another vision of Mordor, but this time of Sam rescuing Frodo. Taking in a deep, shaky breath, Dria's tears became those of relief, and she felt the fibers of her being go slack. _Frodo is alive_. She wanted to stand outside and shout it to the heavens, but at the same time she was anchored to her chair. Frodo had survived that far into Mordor, and she felt a holy glimmer of hope that deserved reverence.

March monotony brought snowmelt, but Dria still did not dig her roses out of their winter beds. Despite this, she noticed a sprig of green protruding out of the piles of pine boughs protecting her delicate bushes. It was much too early for a rose to grow, but she let it be.

Hope shone through the darkness of the latter parts of the month, but it faded slowly. Her own perception of coming doom mirrored Frodo's, but she did not see him in dreams or visions. She only felt what he felt, although he was nearly a thousand miles away. Yet a sharp flash penetrated her vision and her mind one day, and, trying to shake it from her head, she moved to the window.

A single white rose had miraculously bloomed, and Frodo's quest was ended. A light of hope had penetrated the shadow.

Something divine gave Dria the patience to wait out the spring, the summer, and half of the fall. She reread the logs of her visions and added in details, constantly rewriting to make the words more vivid. What once had inspired only fear now only inspired good writing. The shadow had passed, and so Dria had nothing left to fear. Someday someone may need an account of her visions to conquer another darkness. So Dria wrote and wrote, pouring her mind and soul onto the page. Her roses bloomed whiter and more tranquil than last year, and so the summer passed.

Yet a strange hunched-over creature with a staff appeared in the Shire that September, a year after Frodo's departure, and Dria knew in her heart that the War of the Ring still had some problems to solve.

To everyone else, it seemed that Lotho was dictating all the new rules from Bag End, but Dria knew better. Saruman was behind it all. Gandalf must have royally irked him and cast him out of Orthanc for the former wizard to put his sights on the Shire. Rules multiplied and Dria slowly saw the Shire decline, but she quietly complied.

Once Frodo came back, everything would be better.

Word trickled back to Dria in November even though she never really talked to anyone, as her gardening skills had been needed in Bywater. _Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin_ _had crossed over the Brandywine into the Shire_. Upon hearing this, Dria was ready to borrow Princess and go meet them, but she was tied to her work, "Sharkey's" orders.

And, when she heard how little regard the four hobbits had for the new rules, she hoped for insurrection.

While weeding out perfectly good garden against her will, Dria heard tell that Frodo and the others were trying to rouse the Shire-folk against Sharkey's ruffians. Jumping up, she slipped away from the garden and to _The Green Dragon_, where she was staying. She found her bow and watched for determined-looking hobbits with weapons. Once she saw a few, she followed them to a great bonfire set to both blatantly break rules and rile up the villagers.

Figuring someone would end up objecting to a hobbit-maid being involved, Dria scaled the nearest tree and drew an arrow. A few of the Men reached the barricades set up and laughed, thinking dealing with a few rebellious hobbits would be easy. They didn't expect nearly two hundred furious hobbits armed to the teeth. When he tried to fight Merry, who had taken a leadership role in this escapade, Dria was one of the four archers to shoot him dead on the spot. He wasn't the only intruder to be disposed of that day.

And so went the Battle of Bywater, fabled in legend and recorded in the Red Book.

When the hobbits left to deal with the "Chief" at Bag End, Dria followed. Her eyes met Frodo's once, but business had to be conducted before they could have a joyous reunion. She set her face grimly and pulled her bow from her shoulder as they filed into Bag End. There was no sign of Lotho anywhere, but Saruman greeted them with mock welcome.

Dria froze when she saw the former wizard close up. He may not have been quite so powerful, but he was still terrifying. 

"...A little mischief in a mean way: Gandalf warned me that you were still capable of it," Frodo was saying. His face was cool and confident even as he spoke to the one who had greatly altered his homeland for the worst.

As Saruman spoke again, laughing at intervals, Dria's hand went to her arrow sling and slowly pulled out one of her longest, fastest arrows (she'd made several of these for exactly this sort of use). Dria slid her bow off her shoulder and drew it, but kept it low so no one could see.

Dria was startled when Frodo commanded Saruman to go and never return. "Don't let him go, Frodo," she whispered, agreeing with many other grumbling hobbits. "Kill him, Frodo, kill him."

Saruman, of course, smiled sadistically. "Kill him, if you think there enough you, my brave hobbits!" Rising to his full height, he glared down at them with dark eyes brimming with malevolence. "But do not think that when I lost all my good I lost all my power! Whoever strikes me shall be accursed. And if my blood stains the Shire, it will wither and never again be healed."

All the hobbits, Dria included, were convinced by Saruman's words. It was Frodo who saved them. "Do not believe him! He has lost all power, save his voice that can still taunt and deceive you, if you let it. But I will not having him slain. It is useless to hear revenge with revenge: it will heal nothing. Go, Saruman, by the speediest way!"

Dria wanted to go to Frodo then and embrace him, but Saruman was still glaring at him heavily and Dria found that she didn't want him to know that she was in love with Frodo. 

Saruman called out for Wormtongue, whom Dria had only seen once or twice and by now had been reduced to little more than Saruman's dog. As Saruman passed Frodo a blade flickered and stabbed; something miraculous (the _mithril_ mail-coat, but Dria did not know of it yet) broke the blade. In the same instant, Sam and a dozen hobbits tackled Saruman to the ground, and Dria aimed her drawn bow. And yet Frodo still did not want him slain. Dria took a step back, but kept her eyes on Saruman as he stood.

"You have grown, Halfling. Yes, you have grown very much. You are wise, and cruel. You have robbed my revenge of sweetness, and now I must go hence in bitterness, in debt to your mercy. I hate it and you! Well, I go and will trouble you no more. But do not expect me to wish you health and long life. You will have neither." (Dria's blood went cold.) "But that is not my doing. I merely foretell." The hobbits parted to give Saruman room to pass, but they all were ready to draw weapons. Wormtongue began to follow, but Frodo tried to stop him.

"Wormtongue! You need not follow him. I know of no evil you have done to me. You can have rest and have food for a while, until you are stronger and can go your own ways."

Saruman interrupted. "No evil? Oh no! Even when he sneaks out at night it is only to look at the stars. But did I hear someone ask where poor Lotho is hiding? You know, don't you, Worm? Will you tell them?" When Wormtongue whimpered a negative answer, Saruman continued. "Then I will. Worm killed your Chief, poor little fellow, your nice little Boss. Didn't you, Worm? Stabbed him in his sleep, I believe. Buried him, I hope; though Worm has been very hungry lately. No, Worm is not really nice. You had better leave him to me."

Showing as much backbone as such a Worm could, Wormtongue hissed with his red eyes flashing, "You told me to; you made me do it." 

Laughing, Saruman kicked the cowering Wormtongue in the face. "You do what Sharkey says, always, don't you, Worm? Well, now he says: follow!" 

Dria saw the next moment as if it were performed very slowly. Wormtongue sprang on Saruman's back with a knife and slit his throat savagely before running off down the road with a war-cry. Dria and two other hobbits lifted their bows and aimed; a second later Wormtongue collapsed in the dust.

Approaching a bewildered Frodo quietly, Dria took his hand, missing a finger, in hers as they watched the grey mist form around the body of Saruman. Once Frodo covered the disintegrated skull with Saruman's dingy cloak, he turned and gently hugged Dria, delicately holding the one thing remaining from his old life into his new.


	17. XVII

XVII

3019, Third Age (1419 S.R.)

Now that the heroes had returned, there was more work to be done. Saruman's brief rule in the Shire had been incredibly destructive, and everyone, especially Sam, mourned that their picturesque homeland would never be the same again. The greatest losses were the Party Tree, felled to the great dismay of all who had attended Bilbo's unforgettable party, and the willow tree where Frodo had first kissed Dria. Though she had seen it cut down, Dria could barely stand looking at the empty place that had once been her complex haven.

Despite these troubles, Dria and Frodo found time to be together. In fact, they were virtually inseparable. Frodo became the master of Bag End again, as poor old Lobelia Sackville-Baggins returned it to him; and Dria was always by his side. She was always helping him dictate the repairs to the Shire in his new but temporary role as Deputy Mayor. 

It was Sam's idea, really, that helped the Shire to bloom again so quickly. He had been given a box of a fine gray dust by Galadriel, the Lady of Lórien. And so he carefully scattered each grain throughout the Shire, and those who have seen it since know the potency of this powder. Thus, the Shire was saved.

Frodo and Dria stood atop their hill in the chill and the snow, staring at the empty space where their willow tree had once stood. "I still can't believe it's gone," Dria whispered. "I've seen the space a hundred times, and yet I still think a tree should be here. All our memories here..." she trailed off, unsure of where to go with that sentence.

Enveloping her narrow shoulders with his arm, Frodo told her, "It is all in the past. All we can do now is move forward." Warmed by his cloak and his body, Dria looked up at him and managed a small smile, but Frodo was really far away, bedeviled by long-gone shadows. He seemed taller than before, or at least more confident; and yet he was so frail. Remembrance lingered too near and tortured his mind, and Dria felt hopeless knowing she could not distract him with a word or a kiss.

Yule brought great celebration throughout the Shire, and even the brooding Frodo seemed his old self. They attended a lively party at the Cottons' together, and though both remembered mishaps of Yules before, they felt as though it was behind them. After the Battle of Bywater, many hobbits who had once despised Frodo now respected him greatly. So Frodo enjoyed the former Baggins prominence in society, if you can say that he wasn't in actuality stifled by it.

He pondered this as he rested on a long bench at this party. Handing Frodo a mug of ale and sitting beside him on a long bench, Dria asked, "How does it feel to be back?" 

Frodo smiled sleepily and tucked a lock of Dria's dark hair behind her ear. "Beautiful," he said simply, sighing, "it feels absolutely beautiful."


	18. XVIII

XVIII

3020, Third Age (1420, S.R.)

The Great Year of Plenty

On the morning of March 13, Dria bustled into Bag End in the late morning to meet only silence. "Frodo?" she called out. Hearing nothing she strode to his bedroom to see him lying pallid and forlorn in bed, clutching at the heavy blankets and yet still shivering madly. He looked deathly sick and Dria dropped to her knees at the bedside. "Frodo, what's happened?"

His eyes registered Dria's concerned face, but he acted as though he had no idea who she was. "My soul is poisoned," he explained in a hoarse voice. Dria shuddered when she saw the infinite depth of Frodo's dark eyes. They looked so wise, and yet exuded a frightened innocence. Coughing, Frodo added, "Nothing will ever drain it from me."

Remembering his account of the war, Dria realized that one year ago today, he had been poisoned by the great spider Shelob. The beast had not been part of Sauron's plan, and so the wound she had given him remained. Dria sighed and sat on the bed with Frodo, cradling his rumpled head in her lap until he fell into a tossing sleep.

Sam and Rosie were married at Midsummer, and Dria and Frodo both thought of their own relationship throughout the ceremony. Glancing to Dria at his left, Frodo thought of the rest of his life and the possibility of spending it with her. Yet their relationship was different now; there were many long silences and less casual fondling. They already felt like an old married couple, tried and true.

At the same time, Dria was wishing she could comfort Frodo. His quest haunted him, and Dria wanted to make him feel whole again. It was like trying to make him fall in love with her, only a hundred times more difficult. She took her one true love's hand and gave it a squeeze; she wanted him to know that she would always be there for him.

"Two years ago, he was wounded at Weathertop."

"But why does it still bother him? The Shadow has passed."

Sam and Dria spoke in hushed tones outside Bag End on the eve of October the tenth. Frodo had taken ill again on , this time on the second anniversary of his wound from the Ringwraith's blade. Dria was terribly worried, despite the fact that his mood had greatly improved the following day.

Shaking his head, Sam said, "That blade nearly caused his death. The Ringwraiths may be gone, but this shadow still remains." He patted her shoulder in assurance. "Mr. Frodo's survived many a-thing worse than this. It's nothing to worry about."

Dria found that hard to believe every time she saw Frodo's sickly, brooding face in her mind's eye. She brushed away tears and headed to Rosegate, where her breath shuddered with the realization that her world was falling apart and she sobbed until she could sleep.


	19. XIX

XIX

3021, Third Age (1421 S.R.)

The Last of the Third Age

Frodo hid his illness from Sam on March the thirteenth, but Dria noticed how weak he seemed. She sat with him all day, tending to his every need. The quiet was almost unbearable, so Dria finally broke it by murmuring, "You've changed so much, Frodo. I've changed. Everything has changed, and I'm afraid it will never be the same again."

Even though the sun warmed the room, both hobbits were freezing as Frodo said the prophetic words, "It won't be. Middle-Earth will never be the same again, and neither will we."

Sam and Rosie had a daughter on March 25, and everyone in Hobbiton thought her the fairest hobbit-child thought they had ever seen. The adoring parents named her Elanor, after the little yellow star-shaped flowers that had grown in Lórien. Although she tried to avoid these thoughts, whenever Dria saw the golden-haired baby, she thought of herself and the diminishing possibility of motherhood. 

Seeing Elanor greatly cheered Frodo, for which Dria and Sam were quite thankful. Yet he still seemed far away, and his eyes often flicked to the West. Dria noticed this, and those same words that had echoed in her head years before spoke again: _He's going to leave you_.

That summer was brilliantly bright and beautiful, especially when compared to the Shire's condition two years before. Dria was pleased to see that the willow tree was incredibly resilient and new shoots were springing up from the old stump. Yet the hill and the tree were things of the past, and Dria often stayed with Frodo in Bag End.

"You've been looking very ill lately," Dria mentioned to Frodo one sunny afternoon. He sat in his chair by the window, gazing not out at the world immediately outside but that beyond. He was so pale, and seemed in a daze most of the time. He didn't wander like he used to, but Dria noted his restlessness as he paced or desperately tried to busy his idle hands.

Looking up at her, Frodo made no expression with his face except for the depth of his eyes. "My quest has made me ill. The world land makes me ill. Too much evil has lingered here. It pierces my heart."

Dria sat down in the chair with him and worked out the knots in his shoulders. She wished she could transfer her own contentment into her lover and make him happy. If she could have had one wish, that would have been all she'd wanted. The silence was comforting, as Dria didn't want to hear Frodo's pained voice, but she couldn't let the subject drop. Something had to be resolved, and so she said, "You're always looking away to the West."

Without looking at her, Frodo nodded. "Middle-Earth is forever changed. The lady Galadriel said to me, 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.' Elrond's daughter Arwen chose a mortal life with Aragorn, the King of Gondor, instead of leaving the land behind and accompanying her father. The West is the future, and the East is the past."

If Frodo had torn her heart out with his bare hands it would not have left Dria with such a great despair. "You are thinking of going with them, then."

Frodo met her eyes and his shone with a small eagerness. "Yes, I am."

Dria closed her eyes. Perhaps she could go with him to the world beyond Middle-Earth; there was little left for her here anyway. Yet she had not been part of the War of the Ring, and with a weight on her soul she realized she could not go with him. Opening her eyes, she whispered, "Then you shall go. All I want is for you to be well and happy again, and perhaps it is time that our paths part."

When she said these words, it was like Frodo had become his old self again. "You are a _silmaril_, Dria," he said, not cuddling her as he wanted but looking directly into her eyes. "I know what your heart desires. You want to go, but don't think you have the right." He gave in to the urge and held her close, whispering into her ear. "You have the right, Dria, but you are still tied here. I think you still have an unfulfilled purpose in Middle-Earth. What it is, only you can discover."

Dria thought for a moment, but then her memory traced back what seemed decades to her beloved manuscript. "Writing," she told Frodo. "I have to go about this world and record what I see before I can move on to another." She pulled away. "Perhaps if I can keep a good record, then another Dark Lord will be unable to rise again."

Frodo smiled then, a small smile, but still a great improvement. "You are incredibly noble." He kissed her forehead. "I love you, Dria. With all of my heart."

Between then and the time when Frodo set out from Hobbiton once again, time passed in a whirlwind. Frodo planned to leave everything to Sam and Rosie, but despaired about what to do with the Red Book, the combined accounts of he and Bilbo's adventures. Dria was a writer, and he felt she should have it; and yet she had not been a part of his war. 

"I'm not sure what I should do with the book, Dria. It is holy to me, and I feel like it should stay at Bag End, but you are the writer. I'm torn between the two choices," he told Dria in mid-September.

"Give it to Sam, " Dria said, "His adventure was part of yours, and I'd probably lose it."

"Probably. Wouldn't trust you with anything of mine," Frodo remarked with a cheeky smile.

Dria smiled. "Except your heart."

The smile faded and Frodo looked at the floor. "I trusted you with it and you treated it the best you possibly could. Yet it's still broken."


	20. XX

XX

3021, Third Age (1421 S.R.)

Dria's preparations had to be made as well as Frodo's; she asked the Gaffer to keep Rosegate for her--even vagabonds needed homes. At first she thought of leaving strict instructions on the care of her beloved roses, but she realized that these flowers could more than take care of themselves when a yellow one bloomed inside her open window on September 21, as if to wish her well. She had everything packed, and all that was left was to bid Frodo farewell, and set off on her own.

The former seemed a hundred times worse than the latter. 

There was a knock at Dria's door and she opened it to an unexpected surprise. There Frodo stood, looking incredibly pleased with himself, his four-fingered hand holding the lead of none other than Princess. "I thought you might need a mount to carry you around the world," Frodo greeted her with a boyish smile.

Beaming, Dria hugged him with all her might until Princess nuzzled them apart. "You never cease to amaze me, Frodo."

Shrugging, Frodo sat down on the front step, tying Princess to the gate post. "Where do you plan to go?" he asked Dria as she sat beside him in the shade of Rosegate.

"Rivendell. But Bree first, on the way." There was a pause, but not an uncomfortable one. "And I suppose you'll land on the other side of the world." Frodo shrugged again and Dria leaned on his shoulder. "I'll come after you someday, Frodo," she whispered, trying to keep the tears from her voice.

"I know. I know." He stroked her hair and added soothingly, "Círdan the Shipwright will be there, and you will find passage over the Great Sea. But do not rush, Dria, for your time here is important, too."

Dria shook her head gently and a few tears rained onto Frodo's shirt. "You're so wise and loving and beautiful and courageous. I can't believe I'm letting you go." She lifted her head to wipe away the tears.

"I think that _I_ am letting _you_ go. I love you, and so I will set you free, with the hope that you will come back to me."

This triggered a smile from Dria. "Did you make that up?"

Frodo nodded and continued. "And if you return, you will be mine forever." He kissed her softly, a gentle farewell, and whispered, "You are precious to me."

Letting out a strangled sob, Dria stood up. "I can't prolong you here. You and Sam must set off for the Havens."

"He doesn't know yet. I don't know how I'll tell him."

Dria wrapped her arms about his neck as she had when they were younger. "You told me, didn't you?"

"But lovers can tell each other anything."

Sighing, Dria released him. "Sam will be awaiting you, whether he knows your intentions or not." Frodo barely made a move to leave, and Dria saw his reluctance to leave her behind once again. "Do not tarry, and do not look back, Frodo Baggins. I love you, and a piece of me will always remain. Now go seize your future in the West."

This was the perfect farewell for Frodo. "Avoid trolls," he told Dria, tweaking her nose.

Dria watched him walk down the road toward Bag End until he disappeared behind a knoll. With that Frodo passed out of her life for a time, but for Dria there was only a sense of ease, for Frodo was going on his greatest adventure and he was happy again. "Well, Princess, we'd best be off," she murmured, mounting the pony. Her tears had dried and so now she had to start over in the East, in the opposite direction of Frodo's journey.

A shaft of sunlight warmed her through to the spirit, and Dria finally felt like light had penetrated those deep darknesses plagued by the Shadow in her heart.


	21. Epilogue

Epilogue

The Fourth Age

There were few Elves left in Rivendell, as Elrond had left with Frodo, but those who remained welcomed Dria warmly. She sat overlooking the ford despite the cold, reading over her various writings. They were her most prized possession, and a great comfort in the cold months she spent in Rivendell.

As Dria skimmed the account of her first vision, her mind's eye was overtaken by another.

A great ship anchored at a foreign shore, and a few familiar creatures disembarked, along with many elves whose faces were as alien as the shore. Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, Celeborn, Bilbo, and Frodo--they set foot onto the green country and were glad; for this was the West, and they were becoming a part of it.

The vision faded and Dria smiled. It would be her last, she knew: Frodo was finally safe, and she would not need to watch over him any longer. She gazed out toward the sunset, toward Frodo, and remembered her quest here, in Middle-Earth. She would create a detailed account of this new Fourth Age, intelligence left to later generations, in the hope that a shadow could never rise again. In the darkness of the great unknown, it was a candle-flame of light, of hope, of knowledge.

But still, her sight lingered on the fuchsia-and-violet West. Letting out a heavy, cold sigh, Dria whispered words she hoped Frodo could somehow hear.

"Someday, Frodo. Someday."


End file.
